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The Sidekicks

Runners In The Nerved World

Written by: TL on 03/02/2015 18:43:19

To start off the year there's been considerable excitement in both the blogosphere and the twitterverse about Ohio-based indie quartet The Sidekicks and their fourth record "Runners In The Nerved World". The album provides the listener with twelve tracks of airy indie-rock, where the vocals in particular bring to mind the singing on Band Of Horses' breakthrough albums, yet the songs step more lightly, rarely cooking up quite the same amount of pathos. Instead the mood swings from excited to contemplative and back, as governed by the relatively simplistic drum beats, and while the guitars set the twangy atmosphere it falls mainly on the bass and the singing to provide the listener with cords to follow through the songs.

The spectrum is presented neatly over the course of the first three songs, the first two of which, "Hell Is Warm" and "Everything In Twos", come at you with a vivid tempo and a sense of elation, while "Jesus Christ Supermalls" slows down the pace and sets a more introverted emo mood, bringing to mind the slower songs from something like Annabel's 2012 album "Youth In Youth". Regardless of the mood, the songs are pretty simple and straightforward, content to set up their hooks in a poppy manner and end quickly after roughly three and a half minutes of length. This means that the first couple of songs on the record are quick to catch on, while the nuances that give it diversity as it progresses across its middle are perhaps a bit too subtle to truly seize the listener's interest. Bass vibes that channel The Smiths and vocal melodies that occasionally kick it oldschool, bringing to mind Simon And Garfunkel and Fleetwood Mac, characterise songs like "The Kid Who Broke His Wrist" and "Century Schoolbook Grown-Ups", but as you sense that the band invariably prefers to keep things relaxed and basic, it starts to feel like the songs aren't reaching for you with much urgency.

The result is that things blend together in a homogenous sequence of tracks that feel like casual mood music, the kind you put on to cast a more thoughtful and sentimental light over a particularly grey day. To the band's credit, the songs are fairly consistently endowed with hooks you can see yourself humming or singing along to when they come up, either on your home speakers or at one of the group's shows, but at the same time it seems clear that they aren't quite built to tug at you from the first note, or make you want to throw yourself towards the front of a concert to sing each word back. It's no surprise however, to see The Sidekicks praised across the internet, because their sound alone is easily likeable, but before anyone gets carried away and set their expectations too high, it's still more reasonable to expect that more ambitious and urgent records will come along this year and step in front for eventual end of the year accolades. If you adjust your expecations accordingly however, there's no reason "Runners In The Nerved World" shouldn't provide you with enjoyable background music for at least few weeks.

Download: Hell Is Warm, Everything In Two
For The Fans Of: Band Of Horses, Annabel, The Pains Of Being Pure At Heart
Listen: facebook.com/sidekicksohio

Release date 19.01.2015
Epitaph Records