It is a wonder to me how indie rock has stayed the distance and although, it has slipped from favour with both critics and trendsetters, there are still plenty of bands out there wanting to make some noise. One of these bands is Nottingham’s very own The Half Eight.
There three song EP “Rose Tinted Soul” shows them to be a band with a firm grasp of the expectations of their chosen musical genre with both “Timezones” and “End It Right” ticking all the right hook laden boxes for a guitar fuelled Friday night in a city centre basement. To their credit, there are also signs of greater ambition and the episodic “If I Had You” duly takes the listener from a sensitive start to a big finish to provide evidence of just that.
As they will have bills to pay just like the rest of us, I wasn’t expecting anything in the way of surprises from The Half Eight and, while “Rose Tinted Soul” does indeed play it safe, the aforementioned ambition could well lead them toward the ears of the ticket buying masses.