HOCKEYSMITH – EP REVIEW


Hockeysmith – Tears At My Age EP 
Hockeysmith - Tears At My Age EP

Release Date: Out Now

There is quite a buzz around Falmouth outfit Hockeysmith at the moment so it would be wise for you to sit down and listen up. The ‘Tears At My Age’ EP opens up with the title track and the listener is immediately immersed in to the kind of ambient atmospherics you might expect from the Orb or Tennis driven along by a pounding drumbeat and overlayed by Annabel Hockeysmith’s characterful vocal. With a complete change of tempo and energy, we jump fully clothed in to the flamingo shaped pool that is ‘Lonely Loving Me’ – a song dripping in the 80s influences of early Madonna and Stock, Aitken & Waterman with the delay on the vocals filling in all the gaps between the punchy beats.

It is on ‘Messed Up’, however, that the hype becomes entirely justified as Hockeysmith lift the infamous riff from Chris Rea’s ‘On the Beach’ and give it a dark and sensual club energy. This is far more than a sample track, though, as the duo give this a real sense of attitude along the lines of contemporaries Cherryade using lines like “Drink, drink, drink, then I don’t have to think” to really capture the energy of a Friday night in Anytown, UK. The final track on the EP is ‘Dare You’ (a phrase I haven’t uttered since I was about 12) which has a touch of the Enya’s about it to begin within before settling in to the melody and rhythm that Ellie Goulding would kill for to regain some credibility in her career and give up the shampoo adverts. Whereas the 80s were plundered on earlier tracks, this last offering has a deeply 90s vibe going while those dreamy vocals bouncy around like little fluffy clouds. So, that’s Hockeysmith for you, did you get all that? Good, no go forth and spread the good word.


Live Dates:

8th March – Academy of Music & Theatre Arts @ Falmouth University, Penryn w/Bellatrix

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