Red Room - Lifeline

by John Clarkson

published: 25 / 7 / 2012

Label: Red Room
Format: CDS

Versatile seven song debut EP from Southport-based young indie guitar rock bansd, the Red Room

Review

The Red Room are a young indie guitar band from Southport near Liverpool, which, centring around Paul Flanagan (vocals and lead guitar) and Harry Sherriff (rhythm guitar and backing vocals), formed last year. They have just released their seven song debut EP, ‘Lifeline’, on Soundcloud www.soundcloud.com/redroomthe. Flanagan has a similar melodic breeziness and force in his vocal delivery to Michael Stipe, but, while Stipe has remained deliberately obtuse and enigmatic in his lyrics, it is much clearer what Flanagan is singing about. As he recently told a local newspaper, most of the songs on ‘Lifeline’ are about the relationship between past, present and future, and the ways in which the three intertwine. Both the opening title track (“Does it feel like the chaos is over?/Does it seem as it has just began?”) and the closing number, ‘The Witching Hour’ (“Do you ever get the feeling that something is about to happen?”) capture the feeling of knowing that you are on the edge of something life-changing, and that as one chapter in your life is drawing to a close another one is set to begin. The first track is a slow-burner, upon which Flanagan and Sherriff’s siren-like guitars bounce off each other, and they and Flanagan’s vocals build slowly upwards. The latter is a gritty and ultimately euphoric anthemic rock number. Elsewhere on ‘Lifeline’ there is ‘Seventeen’, a jangly, but skewed pop number, the upbeat sound of which is combined with a caustic lyric about a former and still demanding friend that Flanagan has long since grown sick of (“I liked you more when you were seventeen”). ‘Summer’, with its swaggering guitars and vocal, is meanwhile reminiscent of the Strokes, and is about accepting what is over(“Summer has been and gone/It’s never coming back again/Move on, move on”). For an act which has been together only a year the Red Room reveal themselves on ‘Lifeline’ to be already a group of great maturity and versatility. They are a band of immense potential.