Midway
Kickstart Riot

Swedish quartet Midway is releasing their debut album at this time and it is being sold with pretty big claims littering the back of the album booklet. Like how they warn you that the album is highly addictive for the frequent listener, they warn you that the album contains awesome music and that it is regarded as highly enjoyable, inspiring and massive. The thing with all this quotes is that they give no sources that can back the claims up and the reviews on the interweb is indicated that either the album is poorly promoted or too uninteresting to be reviewed. I am quite allergic to big claims, especially when they are not backed up – so how about these guys, is it all talk or do they have something to offer?

Well, musically it is sleaze or something in that vein, look at the similar bands and you will know just about how it sounds. Catchy choruses, a bit lardy and oily and a bit of energy and dirtiness and no originality whatsoever, but it is short and to the point – playing the nostalgia card can hardly be a bad thing in the eyes of the targeted audience’s eyes. Decent production but hardly top notch considering how the top-notch bands of the genre sound today. Nine tracks of which the first one is a rather pointless intro to their kickstarting riot that isn’t much of a riot at least not stylewise and the variation of the album is what you can expect from an album within this genre. They are offering just about what you can expect, something in the middle of the road of this genre.

I think that the quotes on the back of the booklet are a load of complete and utter lies; it is not addictive in great portions – rather the opposite. And it isn’t considered enjoyable, inspiring or massive by anyone that I can find. Overall it is a fairly decent album, but totally unoriginal and that may be a problem considering that there are extremely many bands within this genre. So how will they stand out? How will anyone take notice of this band? I don’t know as nothing of this album is particularly original or interesting but there is at least something that shines.

The track called Cocaine is a bright shining light on this album, a track that is really too good to be on an otherwise average album like this. They hit it nail on the head here, catchiness and cleverness and everything, but it is only one track and the question is whether it is an exception or if they actually can make music as good as this. The future will tell, until then I guess you have to decide whether or not you want to give it a try – fans of the genre might find it agreeable enough.

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