After the success of last year’s debut LP, We Were Always Electric, Dead Sea Souls are one of the Scottish bands of the moment, paring sing-along choruses with radio-friendly guitar hooks.
Building on their winning formula, ‘Brave / The Comet’ is an unchallenging serotonin boost for summer nights that slides by with the easy melodic deftness of The Killers or Phoenix.
Unleashing your newest material as a double A-Side single is a big boast for a young band – you’re essentially saying both of our tracks are so good that neither can possibly drop down the billing, but both tracks do a good job of playing to the groups strengths while moving in slightly different directions.
‘Brave’’s anthemic chord progression motors along like a Killers album track with a soaring vocal from singer/bassist Gary Burns, while its counterpart ‘The Comet’ presents the quartet as a Scottish Two Door Cinema Club with tremolo picked high-string riffs and a sing-along chorus that burrows deep into your brain.
The boinging basslines bring to mind Friendly Fires bouncy Balearic indie-pop and play off nicely against Burns’ Scottish burr.
Support slots with Ocean Colour Scene and The View show that Dead Sea Souls have a knack for winning over audiences with their catchy tunes and chipper demeanour but even as ‘Brave’ encourages the listener to be bold and live life to the maximum, its more conservative counterpart ‘The Comet’ tells of a man whose unbridled hedonism proves to have its downsides.
Unwittingly or not Dead Sea Souls have found a metaphor that sums them up perfectly: you wish they’d throw caution to the wind and take a few more risks.
Words: Max Sefton
