Light Blue - 'Paradise Lost' EP Review

Tracklist:

1. Far Gone

2. In The Back Of My Room

3. Mast

Hailing from Cheltenham, Light Blue are a Punk/Emo outfit who have been making an impact on the live scene, most notably the 2000 Trees Festival and now release their new EP, 'Paradise Lost', featuring new track “Far Gone” along with “In The Back Of My Room” and “Mast”. Now, being of a certain age, whenever I see the word Emo, it’s usually in connection with good old Mr. Philips or a spelling mistake in the TV Times, but rarely in connection with music…and I think I’ve been missing a trick. “Far Gone” fair explodes into your ears with verve and energy and a killer chorus which (with a blanking of the f-word) deserves to find a place on a Lamacq/Marc Riley kind of radio show…not quite enough to hit one of the main playlists but certainly good enough to become a fixture on any decent alternative night time show…maybe not a commercial station but one of the BBC stations should pick this up and run with it. If “Far Gone” isn’t quite main playlist material, then new single “In The Back Of My Room” definitely is. This is a brilliant song that quickly becomes an ear worm and demands further listens…it currently accompanies my morning coffee making at work and everyone asks who it is. With a judicious radio edit to get it to around the 3:30 mark, I would defy any Head of Music to not give this a spot on the playlist. It might not be up there with your Hairy Styles at first, but it will grow and work its way up the rotations to the point where an interview and/or session must follow…it is simply a great song that works for your serious music fans and for those wanting to pass the time in between traffic reports with something upbeat and hummable. Give it a half decent video and I wouldn’t be surprised to see it on one or two of the better TV channels either. Finally comes “Mast”…a reflective change of pace but no worse for it, it allows Callum Middleton to prove his vocal range in a song that slowly builds into a bit of a mini epic that would be perfect for that session I mentioned earlier. If I’m honest, it suffers a little from the sheer energy of the other two songs but after numerous listens I’m still not bored of it which says a lot for it. The EP is released on the 8th December but expect to hear Light Blue on your radio well before then. If you don’t, then there are a lot of people in radio which aren’t doing their job properly.