First Cuts: The Answer, Hayley Reid, Kieran Ring, Noel Bridgeman, Elation, Dragonzeye, Leo Black

End Your Day On A High is the second offering from Downpatrick’s THE ANSWER and it shows the quartet brimful of confidence and positive bluster, with a batch of fine songs in their armoury. ‘Tonight’ is a healthy slab of American mainstream guitar rock of the vintage of Hootie and The Blowfish, with vocalist Cormac Neeson in splendiferous form.

HAYLEY REID brings a less frenetic approach to her acoustic folk-rock songs, and fills out her fairly basic guitar skills with an unhelpfully predictable backing. But none of those deficiencies detract from her excellent voice which gets a good work out on the emotive ‘Sometimes’. ‘I’ll Wait’ has a tougher approach and offers space for Reid’s voice to explore the scale. But ‘Dreams’ is a more serious contender, a heartfelt ballad that conveys real conviction without becoming sloppily sentimental.

KIERAN RING shows in his demo of ‘Spoken’ that he knows how to craft a song. It contains quite a few of the proper bits that many other songsmiths tend to ignore, like a catchy hook line and a melody. Unfortunately, Ring’s vocals are not as accurate as they need to be to do justice to the song, so I’m making this my song of the fortnight with the caveat that a more developed approach to recording it might shine a light into its hidden corners.

NOEL BRIDGEMAN from Rahoon in Galway is a fine acoustic guitarist to the point that his songs require virtually no other embellishment, and he has widely chosen not to smother them in unnecessary ornamentation, but they do lack a focal point to draw the listener in.

Hailing from Warrenpoint are ELATION, whose vocalist John Dinsmore seems to think he could be Neil Diamond today, Robbie Williams tomorrow. Their demo proves that they can play and sing with style and confidence, but what they lack is the conviction common to those offering something original.

If you put two blokes from Mayo with two blokes from Wexford you deserve to get DRAGONZEYE, recent winners of a band competition I judged in Ballina. Live, they bring a knowing smirk to their brand of good-time heavy rock, but somehow that spark gets lost on disc. ‘Woman’ pays its dues to the early roots of the genre, with thumping drums, plodding bass and noisy guitars and gruff vocals.

Unlike Leo Yellow, the agricultural product whose radio ads spoiled many a tasty lunch, LEO BLACK is a singer-songwriter. He has been writing and performing with various bands for six years and it shows in the way he can hold your attention from soup to nuts. He has a gutsy blues voice that can slip into falsetto as required, and he knows how to sing a song as if he’s lived in it.