Album Review: Empire Holiday - Wouldn’t You Like To Know EP

You know when everything about a band screams at you “hate us” but they’re stupidly catchy and you can’t help but sing along? Well Empire Holiday do not fall into this category. In fact, their synth ridden pop-rock is easy to hate. Don’t get me wrong, I wanted them to blow me away with catchy hooks and youthful positivity but they just didn’t.

Opener and title track 'Wouldn’t You Like To Know' sounds like the band have gone through a list of clichéd lyrics and tried as hard as they can to incorporate as many into one song as possible. The chorus wants to be catchy, but doesn’t have the oomph that saw bands like Metro Station and Hello Goodbye hit the mainstream. In fairness, Our Story is a much better attempt but although the fast paced, catchy as hell chorus momentarily grabs your attention, the song struggles to keep you intrigued through the static and pretty tiresome verses.

The track 'Anthem' is a lie. It’s about as anthemic as the computerised queuing systems you get at the post office. Slow, unoriginal and with literally nothing to keep you listening it is, ironically, the weakest song on offer from the Dallas 5-piece. 'Several Years' isn’t unpleasant, but it lacks that pace and sense of direction that the best pop-rock acts rely on.

'My Queen in Ace' takes voice distortion to a whole new level, and coupled with more clichéd lyrics and a pretty forgettable chorus leaves you desperately reaching for the skip button. Your Kiss is a Death Wish shows promise, but just when the song starts to get exciting with a pacey and racing chorus, the verse slows the song right back down, too lumbering and stuttering to make the song really stand out.

Empire Holiday really don’t impress much at all based on this offering. Their music sounds laboured, and becomes very boring very quickly. That said, they seem like just the candidates to build an army of fans, guest star on some terrible Disney Channel show and annoy us with their presence on a far too regular basis in the near future.

1/5

'Wouldn’t You Like To Know EP' by Empire Holiday is released on February 14th

Empire Holiday on MySpace

Liam McGarry