Peace - California Daze

A sweet, refreshing slice of British band history or just another sour taste of nothingness? That’s the Watermelon-pun-based question on the edge of many a punter’s lips when whisperings about Peace begin to gain momentum.

They’re a band, signed to a major label on a big bucks deal where sales most definitely matter. This is rarely the case these days; risks are rarely taken on guitar bands, largely because half of us are claiming the whole genre’s on its last legs. Some point at the demands of radio listeners, how they’re simply not into that sort of stuff anymore, get over it, etc. etc. Others look at the likes of The Vaccines and current contemporaries and suggest that, well, nothing that special has emerged in recent times.

Peace more than justify the funds - and their label’s faith in guitar music, let’s face it - on ‘California Daze’, hinting, the slightest of hints, that the tides may be turning. Whereas previous singles ‘Follow Baby’ and ‘Bblood’ whet the appetites of tastemakers and local Brummy loyalists alike, the latest single has an indisputable universal appeal. Comparisons to the Arctic Monkeys’ ‘A Certain Romance’ sprang up within seconds of the song’s emergence; that stripped-down, classic style of songwriting - it’s almost like a close friend from school days who’d nigh on been forgotten about showing their face again.

Doe-eyed and painless, it’s the total antithesis of ‘Follow Baby’’s rambunctiousness, in-your-face quality. Singalongs are guaranteed to accompany the lines “she tastes like sunlight” and “forget and forgive, there’s a place you can live” - it’s just a case of how big a crowd the band will be performing the song to in years to come. We’ll get off that fence of ours by suggesting it’ll be in the tens of thousands.

‘California Daze’ is taken from the forthcoming ‘Delicious’ EP, due out 9th September.