Although their photo suggest belligerent lachrymose young men struggling to get a degree, and so preferring to jack it all in for nights spent in a garage attempting to emulate Richard Ashcroft, Clubsmith are a surprising blend of musical styles, although never stray far from the indie guitar genre that their haircuts suggest.
(Would you want to join a club called Smith? Or Jones? Although it‟s a better name than the previous ‘The Hair.’)
‘Lament’ starts with a synthed wail and some twinkling peppers the track moving it away from cothurnal mourning. ‘Courtyard# merges together the 4/4 riff with middle eastern harmonies evoking flashbacks of Disney’s Aladdin.
It‟s not highly original, and the lyrics need working on – I gave up counting on the 73rd repeat of the line ‘You could never try’ on ‘Courtyard’. ‘No Friend of Mine’ owes more than a passing debt to the Kaiser Chiefs, but in general the pooled record collections of Sam, Neil, Lee and Vijay have been carefully purged and picked apart with the key elements pieced back together to create some songs that transcend the pallid indie that permeates many an open band night. Still best to keep studying though boys.

Francesca Baker