Brighton-based duo Giant Killers, comprising singer and guitarist Jamie Wortley and bassist and brass player Michael Brown, were a Britpop-adjacent outfit in the mid-90s, signed to MCA Records at the time, touring with Blur and poised to release a debut album which never materialised.
Thirty years on, the pair have now rescued those songs from the shelf, clawed back the rights and re-recorded the tunes to create this belated debut album release in the style they originally intended.
The sound is broadly commercial indie pop – think the more subtle likes of Lightning Seeds, Babybird and The Mock Turtles rather than the chest-beating bounce of Oasis or Blur. Opening track Around the Blocks is a pleasant head-nod with seize-the-day lyrics, Who Am I Fooling scurries along with breathy vocals and stabbing strings in the background while When This Time Is Over makes for easy, breezy listening.
Breaking from the vanilla, I Hoped One Day You Would Know is a resonant piano ballad with a gently soaring chorus, elegant strings arrangements and the plaintive pipe of soprano saxophone, while the lush smooch of Let Me In has more of an 80s feel. These highlights are more convincing than the pallid social comment of This is the Time of Our Lives, a mildly Stone Roses-like celebration of living for the weekend, and For the Money about the grind of working in a factory, with production line lyrics to match.
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