Detroit Social Club – Kiss The Sun

may only be toddlers in terms of rock, but they’ve already inspired legions of slack-jawed, wannabe stadium rockers – take Detroit Social Club, who are so inexplicably devoted to emulating Kasabian’s dunderheaded stadium swagger; even their band name’s alternate acrostic ‘Defy Social Control’ reeks of Meighan’s trademark simplistic, watered-down take on social anarchism.

The EP kicks off less than promisingly; ‘Kiss The Sun’s stabbing guitars and squalling reams of industrial clanking conjure up an almost-exciting air of growing menace never fully actualised on the song’s lacklustre, painfully hubristic chorus. It’s overblown bark is better than it’s painfully anti-climactic bite - it threatens visceral, fearfully bairnstorming indie rock, but in reality it’s all deathly dour. And in the end, frontman David Burn’s hubris is his downfall – he is incapable of playing a song without swathing it in faux-krautrock production build-up, making his limp, beery choruses all the more insulting.

But there are diamonds (however grimy) in the rough; Burn’s unwieldy growl – while seemingly bland on the pale-faced imitations of rock which make up the rest of this EP – takes on a glorious life of it’s own on ‘Black & White’, whose willowy, bluesy structure, unfettered by the limp, embarrassing choruses which plague every other track on the EP, allows Burn to display his considerable pipes to unexpectedly wondrous effect.

There’s no denying that there’s considerable strength in Burn’s voice, if only he’d unchain it from its lad-rock shackles - but this EP serves no attraction whatsoever to any music fans whose idea of a good concert isn’t bolshing around in a grimy, Godforsaken pit with a hundred other sweaty men spilling lager on their heads. In fact, we can’t imagine anyone wanting to listen this EP apart from hardcore Oasis fans, inexplicably pining the Gallagher’s dubious, loutish charm – but even the most thick-skulled cretin of a music fan won’t be able to glean any kind of enjoyment from Detroit Social Club’s insipid pastiche of stadium rock.