Timebomb – Light the fuse EP

Timebomb are a young five piece band from the Chorley area of Lancashire.  The band has only been going since Summer 2012 but have already written and recorded their debut EP.  The band describe themselves as “80’s inspired rock band with a modern day twist”, which is a description I’m not sure I’d agree with – I’m not getting much of an 80’s feel from the music at all.

On to the tracks now…

Hmmm, “Take it or leave it” has music that sounds awfully familiar – I think the writer has been listening to Green Day a bit too much as it sounds like they’ve copied “Holiday” and changed a few notes – the first 20 seconds or so is just too close a resemblance to be coincidental I’m afraid, and that riff structure gets repeated throughout the song.  For me that destroys the song’s credibility, so we’ll have to move on to the other tracks to judge the band by.

“Monster rock” is much better.  It’s a pretty good song, and the vocals are fairly good too.  Musically it’s well played and works well overall.  I did find the bass a bit intrusive at times, but you can’t expect perfect high quality mixing and production on a low budget release like this, especially from a young inexperienced band

“Stand up and fight” starts off with a Green day feel to it again – again the guitar riff at the beginning sounds to have been lifted from a Green Day song, but happily things improve as the song progresses and it loses that Green Day sound and instead sounds like an original song – and a good one at that.

OK so in summary we have two original songs and one that’s only partially original.  Criticism of the blatant lifting of the Green Day riffs aside, it’s not a bad debut – in fact it shows a lot of promise.  If they can take more care with songwriting in future then they’ve got a lot of potential – it’s certainly made me want to see how they are live if they ever play gigs outside the North West.

Rating: 5/10 (It would have been higher if not for the issues with the first song)

Track listing:

1. Take it or leave it
2. Monster rock
3. Stand up and fight

Timebomb are:

Matt Seddon – Rhythm Guitar
Jacob “Boris” Banks – Bass/ Guitar/ Vocals
Catherine Gelder – Lead Vocals
Sam Ellison – Drums
Jack Shaw – Lead Guitar/ Bass