Young Legionnaire - Colossus

Young Legionnaire are the indie supergroup du jour. Consisting of Gordon Moakes (ex-Bloc Party) and Paul Mullen (The Automatic / ex-Yourcodenameis:Milo), completed by drummer William Bowerman (ex-I Was A Cub Scout, and who also bangs the (electro-) drums for that awful fire-alarm sounding La Roux), the band are now releasing their first single ‘Colossus’.

After meeting when YCNI:Milo were sourcing bands for their ‘Print Is Dead’ collaborations project - the idea being that bands would go up to the YCNI:Milo studio in Newcastle and spend no longer than one day writing and recording a song for the record - the track they came away with was called ‘Wait A Minute’, and the process sowed the seed of an idea for them to work together again. Two years later, the result is Young Legionnaire.

‘Colossus’ is a pretty heavy racket reminiscent of early, less tuneful Biffy Clyro. Actually it’s a near carbon copy on everything on Biffy’s 2002 ‘Blackened Sky’ album. Why the three clearly talented men of Young Legionnaire didn’t come up with something more innovative is a bit of a mystery. However, our more noise-loving readers will undoubtedly love it. It’s very ‘head-bangable’.

Overall Young Legionnaire are like a member from a really successful mainstream boy-band that has been unleashed on the masses and now rebels and experiments and celebrates his new found freedom. It’s all a bit chaotic and slightly uncoordinated, but at least there’s passion and once the band has found their feet, there’s surely can be greatness, too.