Tomboy
False Exit EP

Tomboy; a name you’ll be familiar with if you’re a regular gig goer in Southampton. This four-piece have been working the local circuit for almost a year and ‘False Exit’ is their second EP.

Naming legends Bowie and Queen as influences, it’s clear this band are aiming high. Their tracks are innovative and creative, and embellished with quotes from poet William Blake, who himself believed imagination to be ‘the most important faculty of man’.

Self-likened to Radiohead, they do the melancholy thing well, but stray far enough from traditional shoe-gazing to avoid being pigeon-holed. Heavy rock guitars combine with emotive campfire-esque strumming with the highlight of every song being its stunning intro.

‘Crimson Eclipse’ is ambitiously inventive; brothers Duncan and Ollie Roberts’ mingle vocals with dark, sinister poetry and layer it over a syncopated beat – the instrumental is great, but the finale slightly messy.

The chilled-out ‘False Exit’ is the best track with rippling keyboard effects and guitars emulating a heartbeat however, at times the lead vocal could be stronger.

Sounding professional, the tracks are arranged well and each one is polished off with an interesting title, but as an EP it might work better if the order of the songs was juggled slightly.

‘False Exit’ is by no means the finished product, but impressive none the less.