aaamusic | On 06, Mar 2011

Newbury newcomers Francesqa are, it’s safe to say, not entirely unique sounding. They specialise in the heavily polished, mildly angsty stadium-ready rock that so many young British rock bands have adopted recently and they don’t seem to do it as well as contemporaries Young Guns and Futures. There’s a distinct lack of any sort of charisma here, especially on beige hued opening salvo Ghosts that aims for a headstrong, storm out of the gates feeling but just feels tired, despite having what is admittedly a pretty killer chorus.

After that the sound diversifies slightly but rarely does it stray towards sounding anything more than decent. Gaps between lyrics in second track Hopeful stretch out for what feels like months and Years is Snow Patrol with a distortion pedal. Things pick up with Crooked Little Sun’s Biffy Clyro esque verses and You Me At Six chorus, but really, this is too little, way too late. I only listened to the whole thing because I had to, if, like this reviewer, you like your rock and roll to have a bit of bite, energy and charisma, then stay well away from this exercise in making “Alternative” rock as mainstream as possible.

Author: Will Howard