The Sheffield Scenester

From my first listen of Blue Lip Feel’s debut EP ‘Shallow Getaway’ I am intrigued by the fresh sound of the band. Having read a couple of the band’s live reviews before hearing the EP, I expected to be listening to a bunch of Strokes clones, but straight from the opening song ‘Sideways’ It is obvious that this band create a sound that is entirely their own. The guitar intro to the song has a 70’s Led Zep feel. Don’t get me wrong, there is a strong ‘Is This It’ feel to the sound as well (possibly why they seem to get the Strokes comparison so much), but this song has so much more to offer than just that. As soon as lead singer Oliver starts to sing, his voice has you hooked, he has a really nice fragile sound to his vocal that only has a positive impact on the freshness of the song. ‘You could have it all/You could have it all/Only you put me sideways’ this song is sung like it has meaning. A great opening track for the EP.

The second song is called ‘Tulips to the Top’ which opens with an amazing psychedelic guitar part which seems quite influenced by The Verve. Guitarist Thomas keeps the listener interested throughout the song, which shows another side to the group’s quality with several tempo changes throughout. Having not seen these lads play live before I can imagine that within a couple of songs they would have the attention of everyone in the room. Blue Lip Feel don’t seem to need to blaze about at full blast, the first couple of tracks show a confidence in their own abilities as musicians.

‘Tulips’ leads straight into the third track ‘Midnight Oil’. A slightly more up tempo song than the first two, this track has a clever drum sound running throughout. ‘We all need a friend right now’ is the hook line of the song, and with the clever use of backing vocals on this line, I can imagine it being belted out by everyone watching. The production throughout the disc is streets ahead of a lot of the local stuff I get to review, I can tell that this EP has had a lot of thought and hard work go in to it, and I’m sure it will reap a lot of benefit in time.

The closing track on the album shows the bands versatility some more, as they get local rapper Nathan Gordon involved on the track. This song has a fuller sound than the other three EP tracks, and the lead guitar parts are much more prominent. Oliver’s vocal is again high quality and as the song plays through, the rap part comes along as quite a surprise, but having had a couple of listens I really do think it adds to the song. Obviously it gives the track an extra dimension that the other three songs don’t have, and is potentially a risky move for such an indie sounding band to add, but as is the case with Blue Lip Feel’s material, Nathan has taken his time to write a rap part which is of a very high quality and it fits right in to the overall sound of the song. Good stuff once again. I’m not sure if Nathan joins the band during their live sets to do his part, but the track would stand up either with or without it.

With little prior knowledge of this band before I listened to this EP, I am buzzing for what they have coming up in the future. I understand from their manager Ben Hartley that they have their own rehearsal space, which apparently they are never out of, as the quality of the writing on this demo shows. As well as releasing this disc the lads are off out on tour all over the place for the next couple of months, they have a gig coming up in Derby, as well as a date over in Liverpool as part of the massive Sound City event. We can also catch them locally, at The Bowery on 8th April, before the massive Cremfest event which is being held at The Cremorne on London Road over the Royal Wedding weekend at the end of April, BLF are indeed bringing that event to a close with the main headlining slot on Sunday 1st May, I highly recommend trying to get along to see them.

Words by James Whitworth