First Cuts: Trip Hazard, Her Little Orchestra, Mike Ryan, The Stranded Circus

Finding something truly original is not an everyday occurrence, so while waiting for the next messiahs to show up we often have to make do with those who deliver a worthwhile reinvention of what we may have heard lots of times before.

Dublin 4-piece Trip Hazard have little new to bring to the dinner table, but what they do they do with confidence, style and panache. Ploughing a perhaps overly-worn furrow, they veer from ersatz Cardigans one minute, to JJ72-lite the next, and then head over towards the Moody Blues. Under producer Frank McGing’s watchful ear, ‘Daughter Earth’ is solid heavy chord-driven pop, arranged so that it keeps your attention, with smart vocals and extra voices used to keep the adrenalin coursing through the veins. ‘Try Not To Think’ is a more plaintive approach, a mid-tempo mood builder that nearly gets you all the way there. The balladic ‘Endlessly’ is where they meet the Moody Blues, complete with flute and a Justin Hayward trademark quiver in the voice, but no worse for any of that as it happens. So in the absence of a new messiah or two I’ll make Trip Hazard my pick of this week’s crop.

It registers higher on the clapometer than Her Little Orchestra whose lack of true originality sees them fall between stools marked Fairground Attraction and Beautiful South, two bands not exactly at the cutting edge of modern rock. That they are dominated by the fine female voice of Sandra Stevens may steer one’s thoughts in those directions anyway. But ‘Revealed’ is marred by dodgy unison vocals and some clumsy rhythms. ‘Further Down My Road’ has that lazy loping rhythm we’ve heard in songs like ‘Raindrops Keep Fallin’ On My Head’ and it scores with neat brushwork on the snare while Stevens’ superb voice carries touches of Mama Cass betimes. The pace picks up for ‘Miss Saturday Night’, but all you ultimately get is more of the same and more of the same ragged doubled vocals to boot. If record companies wanted this stuff they’d reform one of the afore-mentioned combos. Her Little Orchestra is a potentially fine band, capable of more than disappearing into tribute band hell.

Mike Ryan is a singer-songwriter with a convincing blues-tinged voice. He sings songs like ‘Dream On’ as if he’d lived in them for a while and knows exactly what their mission is. But he picks up penalty points for playing a guitar in a dangerously-out-of-tune manner liable to lead to a breach of the peace. I’d like to hear him record something on a small budget rather than, as here, no budget at all. His heavily nasal voice could get irritating over the long haul, but that can be worked on with a few bottles of Benylin and a course of Nightnurse.

The Stranded Circus are brash purveyors of electro-acoustic rock and their opening track ‘Green Eyes’ boasts truly excellent vocal harmonies which would be even more effective if they weren’t so overdone so early on. The track also features a hypnotic drum pattern that adds dynamic tension once it kicks in. If they could chop half a minute out of it they might have a gem. The swirling ‘Dearest Eve’ is more mundane, if neatly played and sung. ‘The Beautiful Mission’ is intriguingly arranged and less formulaic, but the vocal melody could be more distinct at times. Yet it builds well, keeps your ears pinned and augurs well for the band’s future chances.