As self-released debuts come, they don’t get much more impressive than this. The production team of Paul Corkett (The Cure, Nick Cave) and ex-Verve guitarist Nick McCabe is also a bit of a coup, McCabe is something of a perfectionist and picks his projects carefully, so it’s good to see him involved in a band in it’s infancy. The Nova Saints deserve this break, this EP brims with tunes and riffs harking back to McCabe’s old band with twists of the original Creation bands.

The title track kicks off this 4-track EP, a raucous wall of sound bursts into life after the initial guitar riff, the vocals strong but forced finding themselves somewhere between Richard Ashcroft (The Verve) and Andy Bell (Ride). Elements of both their respective bands also feature heavily, from the wah-wah solo of The Drift to the washes of shoe-gazing guitar of Slow Down through to the heavily fuzzed noise behind High Roller. The only disappointment is the lyrics, dealing with the more mundane sides of life and the general issues of love and loss it’s not the most inspiring but the delivery is anthemic, the music uplifting and well paced so that these minor problems are forgotten amongst the wash of guitars and drums. The McCabe remix of Far Out closes the album and, whether this is the direction they’re going to take in the future, it’s certainly a nice dimension to explore. Creating a dreamy landscape of feedback and gentle drums, it’s more akin to the post-rock fraternity but with the occasional ethereal vocals.

So whilst it’s not a perfect start, this is still an impressive beginning for a band. The ideas are all there and certainly their sound and direction is spot on. A touch more attention to the finer points of songwriting will surely allow these guys to take their place in the public conscious. At the moment there’s a gap where The Verve and Ride used to reside, one for a band who can mix their rock with the more finer aspects of shoe-gazing and dreamy landscapes of psychedelia.
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Links
The Nova Saints [myspace]