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Ormondroyd - Hit & Hope

Reviewed by Dave on 5th March 2007

When you “hit and hope” its generally in a game of cricket, to do so you simply close your eyes and flail your bat wildly in the general direction of the ball, those who attended cricket matches where I was at the crease would have seen some textbook “hit and hope” shots, and this is precisely what it sounds like Ormondroyd have done, closed their eyes, picked up some instruments and hoped for the best.

The album starts off promisingly with ‘Wenceslas’ an instrumental post-rock song in the vein of iLiKETRAiNS, but it ends too abruptly, just as the song reaches a crescendo, just as you are being swept away on a tidal wave of sound it ends, there is no fade out, just an end.

The second song on the album ‘DDD’ has a rather good beginning, its slow, quiet and the vocals are simply brilliant, however it’s let down by some indie guitar riff that kicks in after about a minute and transforms a quite dramatic post-rock song into a post-rock song with a not very good guitar chorus.

The whole album could be summed up by saying that it is, in parts, utterly brilliant but is ultimately let down because the band seems to be trying to do too much, to make everyone happy and appeal to as many people as possible. Every track has flashes of real brilliance, moments where you might think to yourself “wow, these guys are good” but after a minute or so they try something different and you just end up thinking “well, so much for that then”

Obviously there are tracks on the album that are unmarred by over-complication; the drum driven ‘Eyes on the Road’ being one of them, it’s simple enough and the vocals are well complimented by the drum backing and guitar riff, it has a distinctly Bloc Party sound to it at times, which is not a bad thing at all and is easily one of the best albums on the track.

The best thing about ‘Eyes on the Road’ is that it is immediately followed by ‘Quick, Run’ a slow, quiet and well written song, when the violins hit you know that something special is coming up and the song builds into a well played guitar heavy instrumental middle eight. The song fades out as the vocalist promises “I won’t waste your time”; it’s just an all round good song really.

With the flashes of brilliance that pop-up from time to time throughout ‘Hit & Hope’ I really hope that the band develop their own style and sound and manage to make it stick, it just seems that at the minute they are all over the place and don’t really know where they want to go. Each song has its moments but most of them are let down when something else is added that doesn’t fit.

Rating: 6/10
Website: www.ormondroydhq.co.uk
Buy It Now: amazon.co.uk

Bob says:-

I just took a listen to these folks on their myspace account and really quite enjoyed what I heard - They list a few of my top bands in their influences so that kinda explains why... Thanks for reviewing them Dave!

6th March 2007 @ 09:46:22 GMT

Dave says:-

Not a prob Bob, I guess you added the photo to the front page, thanks for that.

God this is quite shit, the only people commenting on the reviews are the staff, tell you what, next hot indie chick to post a comment on any of my reviews can go on a date with me, I think thats an ace prize.

6th March 2007 @ 18:40:49 GMT

Bob says:-

It's probably due to the fact I keep breaking the comments system... It wasn't working for about a week there :D

I really should stop 'tweaking' the site...

8th March 2007 @ 23:16:24 GMT