★★½
Shot through as it is with an especially youthful kind of swagger, Lime Cordiale’sRoad To Paradisefeels ready-made to score secret adolescent cigarette breaks behind the bike sheds.
At its best, the EP is as entertaining as indie-pop of this variety comes; it’s a jangly collection of bombastic choruses, juicy solos and anthemic lyrics. A song like ‘Hanging Upside Down’ perfectly demonstrates the young band’s ability to combine hedonistic pleasures with a palatable kind of rebellion. It’s pop-punk with the anarchy dialled down and the energy ratcheted right up, and though it’s so safe that it would make only the most conservative of parents concerned, tracks like ‘Good From Far’ have a pleasing flippancy about them.
But it’s far from perfect. There is a vaguely overproduced quality to the EP; both ‘Feel Alright’ and ‘Other Ties’ feel neutered and toothless, and at times it seems as though the band has polished its own message out of existence. Though ‘Not That Easy’ is fun while it lasts, its pleasures are of a distinctly vapid variety.
Road To Paradise is a particularly pedestrian pleasure then; junk food for the ear that won’t entirely satisfy, but certainly won’t offend or annoy either.
Lime Cordiale’sRoad To Paradiseis available now through Chugg.
