Mesh-29 - Secret Traffic

It’s not easy coming from an absolute nowhere town that orbits Peterborough, which itself has very little whatsoever in the way of a music scene or any real venues. Therefore it’s nothing short of a miracle that Whittlesey has borne an actual band. Mesh-29 has a hit single to its name and everything.

Now, sharing a hometown with Mesh-29 makes us really want to sympathise with them and find a kindred spirit. However, sadly the music is a little too wet at times to have any real effect. It’s by no means bad, the songs are all well played and honed, however the production is a little too shiny, and the vocals a little bit emo. Overall the effect is of a not as good version of Air Traffic (with whom they’ve toured).

Thankfully, there’s enough effort put into this, with variety across the tracks that stops this from becoming tiresome. The recent addition of a drummer to the band means that the decent mix of acoustic guitars, pianos, electric guitars and string sections across the first half of the album are driven forward. This culminates brilliantly on ‘Waiting For The Day’, whose instrumental section has a galloping Wild West feel.

There’s a sadness and downbeaten felt to the songs that manages to accurately portray the characteristics of their usual environment, for instance ‘Barricade’ features the lyrics “Going in circles and nothing’s the same / We’ve got to get out of this”. Song titles such as ‘Life Most Ordinary’ bring this across also. Yet, there’s still the overriding feeling that the underpinning angst is more stranded teen, than anything else.

Sadly, the high points are offset by one too many drippy ballads (mainly prominent in the records second half), made all the worse through the over the top production. It’s far from irredeemable, however if this were all over the radio it would become really tiresome really fast. Thankfully it seems that Mesh-29 are going to continue operating on a small level for the time being. Lets hope that given time they can iron out their flaws and maybe progress to something a little more invigorating.