Rockfreaks.net

Bob Sacamano

My Heart Is On Fire EP

Written by: TL on 24/10/2012 11:39:17

Bob Sacamano are a five-piece rock-band from Copenhagen, Denmark who have gotten some early traction by doing well in the local tiers of the Emergenza band contest and by receiving a lot of plays on Danish band community Bandbase.dk. Those plays have largely been collected by songs from the band's first EP "My Heart Is On Fire", which has also made its way to our promo pile, where it has been waiting for a review until now.

The EP casts the band as one trading in melancholic, melodic rock music which is instrumentally similar to the domestically famous Saybia, taking a traditional approach to layering guitar melodies and building chorus oriented song-structures. The expression builds around the characteristic vocals, which bring to mind a variety of different comparisons depending on where in his range the singer is working.

For instance, opener "Beautiful" is all anthemic, uplifting melodies filled with regretful lyrics and on here the singing sounds quite a bit like British rock veterans like REM, Idlewild or Snow Patrol. The following title track "My Heart Is On Fire" brings more drive and attitude though, and when darker tones are reached for on here, you can almost compare the result to The Twilight Sad or Johnny Cash. And the latter stays firmly in mind during the gloomy verse of last song "When The Time Is Right", to give way to a return to the REM-ish style when the chorus swings back around.

As for the sound itself, the band has gotten a decent result out of a home production and you'd have to nitpick to complain about the mix here. They haven't conjured up the most novel of sounds however, as the expression comes across a little ordinary, but this is no hurdle they can't clear so long as they get the most out of their songwriting. "Beautiful" is so far the best example of them doing so, going straight for your short term memory with its obvious refrain, while "My Heart Is On Fire" and "When The Time Is Right" are more the type of songs that give you a more nuanced idea of the band's personality, as opposed to being ones that stick to your memory for posterity.

All things considered then, "My Heart Is On Fire" is just a flat out decent first effort, showing that the band behind it can cook up some promising results even with small means at their disposal. They could do well however, by further refining their own unique personality and/or honing their songs to an even more impressive point - Pretty much the same areas of potential improvement shown by many solid young bands on their first attempt.

Download: Beautiful
For The Fans Of: Saybia, REM, Idlewild, Snow Patrol + occasional darker tints
Listen: facebook.com/BobSacamanoDK

Release Date Early 2012
Self-released