Kassidy - 'Hope St' (Mercury) Released: 21/03/11

Kassidy are living the dream that few young musicians get to live these days. In an era when getting discovered and signed by a record label and having everything paid for are but a dim and distant memory, with bands these days slogging and paying their own way through two or three albums before a big label will take a chance on them, these four lads from Glasgow had scarcely cobbled together an EP before Vertigo plucked them from their shared house-cum-rehearsal studio and threw some serious money at them.

At least, that’s how debut album ‘Hope St.’ comes across. Produced by Jim Abiss, who has worked with the likes of Arctic Monkeys and Kasabian, ‘Hope St.’ gives few clues that little more than 18 months ago this lot were still making a racket in a glorified garage. So what did Vertigo see and hear that made them so desperate to share Kassidy with the rest of us?

Well, there’s no doubt that folk has been all the rage these last few years, and Kassidy come complete with the beards, shaggy hair and acoustic instruments that purveyors of that genre usually require. But thereafter, comparisons that have been drawn with the likes of the trailblazing Mumford & Sons begin to go a bit fuzzy.

It’s immediately obvious with opener ‘Stray Cat’ that this is more American acoustic rock than British folk, and not necessarily cutting edge American acoustic rock at that. The fact that ‘That Old Song’ which follows sounds like an attempt to bring ‘Rawhide’ up to date only serves to confirm this. 

Then, a moment of sparkle comes, ‘I Don’t Know’ sounding like a much cheered up Crash Test Dummies being forced to sing over the beat of The Bee Gees’ ‘You Win Again’, and in spite of all that managing to be an early album highlight, even with the seemingly premature hands in the air section near the end. But from then on suspicion begins to creep in that this is a generic box ticking exercise, with all bases being covered but nothing particularly original or inspiring on offer.

What is also obvious is that the record has been swamped with production. Every track feels like being relentlessly beaten across the face with a big Kassidy stick, with every vocal part layered to infinity, instruments everywhere, and all the levels turned up to 11. However, this only papers over the distinct lack of substance; listen carefully to the lyrics, and you sense a collection of stock lyrical phrases roughly taped together for no better reason than they fit the metre. Everything begins to sound very derivative, as if it has all come from somewhere else, though you can’t quite put your finger on where; a soft rock ballad here (‘Take Another Ride’), some regurgitated blues rock there (‘The Betrayal’).

Late on, the title track does indeed give a glimmer of hope, and shades of the aforementioned ‘I Don’t Know’ suggest the lower key material is where promise may lie. But as the record nears its end, there is little feeling of progression or variation; by the time ‘The Betrayal’ has petered out, you feel a sense of disappointment, as though nothing really tugged at your attention, and that it all sounded vaguely similar from start to finish.

Comparisons with the likes of Mumford & Sons might prompt the easily persuadable to part with their tenners at the record shop in short order, but more discerning ears will hear a wide gulf between the two bands in both originality and quality. Radios 1 and 2 will be probably scrap over the contents of ‘Hope St.’ but whether dyed in the wool folk fans will give it a second glance is another question altogether.