Sunday 18 October 2009

SINGLE: 'Virgins' by The Chapman Family

Release Date: 19/10/09 

Can be heard at: www.myspace.com/thechapmanfamily

Another in the recently fruitful line of pretty good bands from the North-East, Stockton-on-Tees’ The Chapman Family succeed where recent efforts from Maximo Park and The Futureheads have failed: this track oozes balls. Building on the visceral explosion of previous single ‘Kids’, on ‘Virgins’ the band marry the familiar bludgeoning drums and wailing wall-of-sound guitars to dangerous hints of melody and more dynamic vocals. This is a song which sounds good enough on the stereo, but will surely sound fantastic live – you can well imagine an army of teenagers and twenty-somethings with their fists in the air, replicating the perfectly placed chorus kiss-off “I don’t think I like what you’ve become” word for word.

By contrast, second track ‘Good Times’ is a fairly sombre affair, sounding like a lazy cast-off from the recent Twilight Sad record, and should remain firmly in the ‘forgotten b-sides’ category. Nonetheless, on the strength of ‘Virgins’, The Chapman Family should expect to please existing fans and turn the heads of a growing number of listeners.

Rating: 3.5/5