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| Blank Maps - Everything Ends |
Blank Maps – Everything Ends
Release Date – 4th March
Now I love a good band name and I
think Blank Maps is a pretty good one, 7/10 I’d say. The trouble is, I also
love a good map. Funny place names, historic roads, strange geological
anomalies. It’s always a party with a map. So I’m a little confused at the
start of this review and hoping the music will take over and make my decision
for me. ‘Everything Ends’ is the debut offering from Newcastle’s Blank Maps and
it’s a swirling, expansive and atmospheric affair with plenty of ambition and
ideas. There are elements of the XX but without the soft female vocals,
sections of Everything Everything but lacking the pace and a soupcon of latter-day
Radiohead but without the complete disregard for musical convention. It’s the
kind of music that 6 Music will lap up and I don’t necessarily mean that as a
bad thing but it does mean that these guys seem to have created something of a
tickbox genre, perfectly pitched at being daytime background music for Graphic
Designers in Brighton or Leeds. I’m undecided where I stand on this one which,
in hindsight, makes Blank Maps a frighteningly apt name for the band. No
boundaries but also no sense of belonging.