White Belt Yellow Tag: Methods

If White Belt Yellow Tag's debut album were condensed into a video, it would find them gazing with furrowed brows into the far distance, lashed by rain. This is epic rock, questing for grandeur and dripping with the kind of non-specific melancholy that has sold countless records for Coldplay. Singer Craig Pilbin reaches for his falsetto when he wishes to communicate a particularly intense longing – which is several times per song – while multi-instrumentalist Justin Lockey lets the guitars and effects swirl behind him. When it works, as when the thudding, motorik riff of Remains leaps unexpectedly into its chorus, it's thrilling. But too often Methods offers all the signifiers of dramatic, passionate, uplifting rock without actually being especially dramatic, passionate or uplifting. A loyal following will doubtless be built, but those who feel one Editors or Coldplay album fills the epic slot in their collection need not shell out for this.