The Sheffield Scenester

Following on from the band’s self released debut single ‘Escape’ comes the groups heavy and exciting EP release ‘Warning Shots’. The cover of the EP looks really good, depicting a rose in red, white & blue. Before I even listened to the songs I could tell the band had made a massive effort with it, which is always good to see.

These 4 Sheffield lads have been playing together for just over a couple of years now and this is noticeable in the tightness of the EP’s opening track, ‘Warning Shots’. The track is quite unique for an opening track, as it is more or less an instrumental number with a melodic backing vocal which ties in nicely with some clever guitar work and intricate drum sounds which run throughout the core of the song. Safe In The Crossfire have a wide ranging musical influence, from Audioslave and Incubus right through to AC/DC and The Deftones, but they have certainly managed to pick up a sharp sound which they have made their own and dead good it is too.

This intro then takes you straight into the EP’s second song ‘Hyde’, and what I already like about this band is the snappiness of their music, it’s obvious that they have worked hard during recording to get every part spot on, and this tune is again proof of that. The track is heavily layered with backing vocals which coupled with Nick Drake’s powerful vocal performance and more beat perfect drums from Simon add another couple of dimensions for the listener. ‘You own this town when the sun goes down’ is the song’s tag line, and I can imagine that these tunes will go down well in a live setting.

The 3rd track is a song called ‘Ambush’, upon my first listen to the EP I did question whether having two songs that didn’t contain any lyrics could be a mistake, but when you listen to it as a collective I don’t think it is a problem. ‘Ambush’ is a great tune in it’s own right, the heavily layered guitar parts and exciting bass lines again add to my assumption that these boys would go down really well in a live venue, as is proven with the fact that they came in 2nd place at The Corporation nightclub’s battle of the band competition 2010, this achievement earned the lads a main support slot in Corp for last year’s Tramlines Festival, and I wouldn’t be surprised to see them build on that initial success this year.

The last song on the EP is going to be their next single ‘Wick At Both Ends.’ I really like this tune, it’s meaning is pretty self explanatory from it’s title and as you listen to the explosion of noise the words are fired out at you: ‘When will I close my eyes/when will I ever close my eyes/there’s no time for rest/there’s no time for rest.’ This song would get everyone down at the front for certain, and I’m sure will go down a storm at the o2 Academy on the 23rd Feb when they support Senses Fail.

The full EP is available as a free download from

and is well worth a listen, get yourself out and about to see these lads playing around Sheffield in 2011.

Words by James Whitworth