Hotel On Mars - Want What You Want
Info: Dublin five-piece Hotel On Mars release their debut album, Don't Feel Like Daylight, tomorrow with a headline show in The Grand Social, which follows on the release of two singles from the album, 'Want What You Want' (above) and 'Sentinel' (below). In their own words; Don't Feel Like Daylight is a collection of 10 tracks of high energy, high tempo guitar tunes. It was self-produced by the band, who all played live in a big old room deep in the Welsh Valley, and stuck the results to tape. With nods to The Clash, The Ruts, Pixies, Franz Ferdinand, John Denver, Phil Collins, Pearl Jam and whatever you’re having yourself.
A Venn diagram of Hotel on Mars would place 80's post-rock in the left oval and mid-noughties indie rock on the right side with an extremely crowded union in between. Opening with 'A New Foe', which would fall into the middle, it's Supergrass In It For The Money bendy guitar riffs providing the backdrop to the Kaiser Chiefs, not predicting a riot, but maybe warming up to one. 'Bad Dalai Lama' booms Kula Shaker funky guitar and Happy Monday's swagger, an early exemplar of what Hotel on Mars might produce on stage. Then their own undoubted stamp appears on 'Everybody is a DJ', bustling guitar and drums drive like a locomotive behind the punk vocals, you'd imagine an audience shoulder-barging each other with abandon and defying gravity front of stage to this one.
Hotel On Mars - Sentinel
'Head for Rent' is a really nice punk shot in the arm, chaotic and chock full of energy, perhaps revealing where Hotel On Mars feel most at home and you'd imagine a track they are rightfully and particularly proud of on their debut album. 'Machine' and 'Passes Over You' see the Dublin band veer cautiously yet ably into garage-mode, stinging distortion and gratifying percussion bang away at your ear drums with vocals providing the counter balm.
The album's final quarter introduces it's two singles to date, 'Want What You Want' and 'Sentinel', the former of which is loaded with attitude and revels in it's indie-pop-centric guitar strumming and chorus. 'Sentinel', the latest single on the album reveals much, the first time I heard it I thought Franz Ferdinand meets The Cure, with the delicious guitar solo pulling the track away from both, like 'Pictures of You' without keys and too much sugar in the blood stream (or just enough), it's a song that makes you sit up, and it's not alone on a consistently enjoyable album.
Look / Like / Listen & Follow:
Website: http://www.hotelonmars.com/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/hotelonmars
SoundCloud: https://soundcloud.com/hotel-on-mars
Twitter: https://twitter.com/hotelonmars
