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The Quiet - Demo

Reviewed by Andreas on 27th April 2003

The Quiet are a three-piece from Bristol, and no, they don't play garage (thankfully) or anything like that. I suppose you'd have to classify this as pop-rock, think slight Turin Breaks influences, mixed with a bit of grunge and a bit of JJ72 (not in a bad way, mind). They say that they're a grunge band themselves, but I'll have to disagree slightly with that.

I must start to say that I'm surprised by the quality of the songwriting here, by looking at the band's website you'd think that they're a band playing crap covers. All three songs on their demo are quite fresh sounding to my ears. "Circuits", the first song, is a quiet number (they are, after all, The Quiet). Clean guitar, bass, drums and vocals. Vocalist Jon has a very noticeable voice, his singing has a lot of character. Together they create a silent melody, loaded up on a slightly angsty-yet-pretty feel. The lack of any apparent chorus drags it a bit down though.

The Quiet don't show what they're made of until the second song, "Brazil", another quiet song, a stop-start rhythm breaking the backing section up, gently added to by more remarkably good vocals. This song features a lot of melancholy, the chorus being the highlight. Very good indeed! This is what pop should sound like. Only thing missing is the good production, and more instruments basically, it's all a bit too stripped down. This has potential! Imagine some violins and some slow-geared guitar over the song...

The thing with The Quiet is that their three recorded songs are indeed quiet. It gets a bit monotonous after a while. I wouldn't say boring, but some might lose interest after two songs. This was my initial thought anyway. The lack of variation in the instrumental department needs to be taken care of, basically. As I sat and listened to the final track, "The 50s", I thought it might need a good dose of distortion guitar. And if someone had actually taken my advice for once , a proper dose of distortion comes on, accompanied by a gorgeous vocal melody. Only goes to show how much potential this band possess.

The only downside is that the songs all sound a bit too similar to each other. I had a hard time trying to remember which songs were which in retrospect. The combination of one guitar, one bass, one drum kit and one voice is a bit worn out, especially when The Quiet's songs could be very very good given the right production. I know that for an unsigned band studio time costs money, but I'm confident they could have done better than this! Still, it's good to hear a band whose strength lies in the songwriting and not the production/mass of guitars etc, but I still feel that somethings missing.

I really like this band! Keep going!

Oh and do something about your site, it's a bit of an eyesore!

Rating: 9/10
Website: www.thequiet.co.uk

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