Review Summary: An underwhelming debut that could see Delphic become the hype machines first victims of 2010.
At around this time every year, almost every music publication you come across is filled with articles on unknowns they claim are set to rise to stardom in the coming twelve months. Some succeed, but predictably the majority of these tend to fade into obscurity having had their fifteen minutes of fame, while some don’t even get that far. Frankmusic, Red Light Company, Gary Go, Filthy Dukes and VV Brown were just some of the widely tipped new artists for last year that fell victims of the hype machine, and judging by their debut album, Delphic could be first to fall in 2010.
In truth, their music does have some mainstream appeal, so it’s not inconceivable that
Acolyte could be a commercial success, but in terms of actual quality the Manchester quartet’s debut is a grave disappointment. Their fusion of indie and dance has been done before, and done better at that, and while the album does have a select number of highlights it all too often delves in mediocrity.
Being a highly hyped indie-dance band, you’d expect Delphic’s sound to mix the best of both worlds, but this unfortunately is not the case. The beats on the album are all terribly dull, and this alone sucks the songs of any energy they could potentially have had. Vocalist Richard Broadman’s underwhelming voice is also a source of this problem, draining choruses that could very well sound catchy with a better, more charismatic vocal. The albums production is also poor, only adding to its snooze-factor. The beats that are important to all forms of dance music are lost among the synth sounds surrounding it, making the songs seem hollow and lifeless. Truth be told, you just can’t imagine anyone wanting to dance to such uninspired songs, which is surely the aim of any band within such a genre.
Unfortunately, the poor production also plays a part in exposing the shortcomings in songwriting that plague all too much of
Acolyte. Most songs here are repetative, single paced and stay beyond their welcome due to excessive running times for the amount of material present. These characteristics come very close to ruining album highlight and first single
Counterpoint, one of the only songs here with a memorable chorus, or any hooks of genuine quality for that matter. The other standout, and surprisingly so is the title track, an instrumental that also stands as the longest song on the album exceeding eight minutes. Unlike the rest of the record, it goes through various changes in tempo, and the synths actually add something to the music instead of just being there with little purpose.
Unfortunately the appeal of these two moments cannot be matched by the rest of the material, most of which is painfully mediocre. A perfect example is
This Momentary, which starts nowhere and ends nowhere, with very little in between. Elsewhere, the band try to address the albums dullness on the likes of
Clarion Call and
Doubt – but only by adding clicks and voice effects respectively, which both prove nothing but irritating.
Overall, Delphic’s debut isn’t an awful album, but it’s simply not interesting or unique enough to hold any real replay value.
Counterpoint, if re-released has the potential to chart highly, but realistically you can’t imagine anything here becoming an anthem to remember 2010 by. They certainly should be able to improve on this with their future releases, but you can’t help but think that they’ve missed their big chance with
Acolyte, and unfortunately for them, when fame comes calling he only tends to knock once.
Recommended Tracks
Counterpoint
