🅑🅐🅒🅚 🅣🅞 🅗🅞🅜🅔🅟🅐🅖🅔

After all, let’s not get bogged down about who didn’t do what and to whom they didn’t do it. This is meant to be a happy scene after all! So who was this firey buck? A one Mr Karl Hickbread, none other than the mind behind ‘Dake Gleyou’ the artist who once said ‘Derby won’t know what hit it’ when he unleashes his debut EP. Let me put something to bed immediately Karl, you’re right…they won’t have the foggiest because your EP will have absolutely no impact on the lives of anyone up there in the midlands…it’s THAT bad.

​

OMG?!! A review from us with negative connotations? Feels good don’t it?! Now the first thing that’s going to make your juices curdle is the title, ‘I’ll Love You Forever, I’ll Like You for Always’. I’ll be the first to say that Joey Tribbiani touched the world in ways it’ll never experience again, but seriously?! Before you’ve even pressed play you’re shuddering at the thought of some newbie attempting a synthwave rom-com rollercoaster…no thank you!

​

Track one unveils a real simpleton approach to music, it’s difficult to work out whether this guy has gone for an intro or a half-baked attempt at a proper song. ‘A constant Drone’ does exactly what it says on the tin. How you can call a track by its proper name without any discernible constituent parts is beyond me. No melody or hook, no structure, no bridge and no real evidence that this was put together by a person that knows what they’re doing.

​

Things pick up slightly in ‘A Thousand Ways to Say I Like You’. It’s a bit messy in places and fires about some pretty dark language for your average ‘like’ song. ‘Liz Anya’ is the heroine on vocals here and they’re basked in a worldly glow despite the darkness in the lyrics. The synths on show are mediocre at best, and yet they represent the best work on the compilation and we’re only at track two! As the next song blasts in, you realise immediately that we’re back in the realm of throwing caution to the wind. ‘A Bee On My Bonnet’ is quite literally the worst attempt at synthwave I’ve heard since sliced bread! The weird thing about it is that it’s almost the same track as ‘A Real Hero’ by ‘College’ and ‘Electric Youth’ but everything just sounds flat and unjustified. And it does this, for a mind-boggling 4 minutes without lyrics. This is definitely the work of someone who has stumbled upon synthwave recently and got all giddy at the prospect of making music from the comfort of his bedroom. Ya gotta get out more dude!

​

‘Never Stop, Never Loving’ is a nice idea poorly executed. The scene seems to be going through a phase of covering some of the most famous tracks within its boundaries and I’m all for it when it’s done with verve and vigour. Here is an attempt at covering ‘Never Stop’ by Fm-84’ and ‘Ollie Wride’ and it stinks once more of naivety. You’ve got to put your own stamp on proceedings, you can’t simply adjust a few knobs and use the same ingredients and call it something else, this is cabaret level stuff! The only saving grace of this monstrosity is the fact that ‘Liz Anya’ does a pretty sweet rendition of Ollies lyrics, but doesn’t quite hit the notes as sweetly as the man himself. My advice to you if you’re reading this Liz is to find yourself another partner.

​

‘You, Me & Debris’ is a clever play on words with vocals that speak of the pieces of you both that break away every time you argue. It’s a scenario where we can all say we’ve been there that’s for sure. And something about this makes me quite like the track. It has a bit of a soft underbelly considering the subject that does well in taking the edge off a bit but I’d have liked to have seen that keytar solo build up a bit more. Just as you expect a big of fanfare towards the end, it does a bit of a premature death. The last track is possibly a reprise of the opener, but why on earth would you want to do such a thing to such a boring-ass track?! There’s a lot more ‘low end’ this time around so chances are you won’t hear much of it in a small set of headphones which might be its saving grace. ‘The Last of Us’ comes to a damp squib of an end and you find yourself wondering what the point of all that was.

​

Once again, may I remind you that this review is here because we were pushed in to it. And yes it may be a little on the strong side, but sometimes we all need a little reminder that there’s room for improvement not just in music, but in life and how we live it. ‘Dake Gleyou’ certainly isn’t the new hero the scene has been crying out for, more a keyboard merchant with catastrophic levels of confidence. But confidence doesn’t always bring about success and I would implore you to go back to the drawing board and rethink your strategy. Thanks for reaching out to us and we hope we’ve been of service to you…pahahahaaaa! We doubt you’ll see it like that! Joe Ward 3/10