The Afternoons - Rocket Summer / Baby, You Know The Deal (Saturday)
UK release date: 27 June 2005
Rocket Summer the title track from this five-piece band's recently released and brilliantly infectious third album of the same name. It carries those wonderfully harmonic traits from classic U.S. West-Coast pop bands like the Beach Boys and influences derived from groups closer to home such as The Kinks and the Super Furry Animals.
Both songs work well as a double A-side single; Rocket Summer is a highly palatable, more up-tempo delight, despite a bass line that is a little too haggard. Baby, You Know The Deal has a contagious sixties pop vibe with an insatiable rhythm. As a treat both songs are accompanied by Tonight, The City, which is a delicate piano-based ballad which momentarily gets lost in overdoses of sentimentality, but Richard Griffiths' voice is strong enough to keep you hooked.
It is a great feat for the UK band that their current superlative album is gaining high ground: The Afternoons show obvious promise with such amazingly catchy rhythms, instant hooks and an overall alluring sound.
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