Cue the alarm bells. Bohica are a band that describe themselves as ’emo’. As we’ve said before, we’re immediately skeptical of bands that apply such a tag to themselves – not least because even superstars of the emo movement (ah, the good(?) old days of last decade where angst was in and rumours of wrist-slitting apocalypse worshippers were all the rage) didn’t brand themselves as such.

And, as with Coasts, we sit here chomping down on our own feet as it turns out that the latest band to brand themselves as ’emo’ are – whisper it – actually quite good. Or at least if their debut track ‘Dry’ is anything to go off. Channeling the angsty disillusion of Kurt Cobain in their vocals, the swirling melancholy of shoegaze and the garage-rock crunch that made the first wave of emo bands so exciting, Bohica have something good to offer.

‘Dry’ itself sits in the eye of the shoegaze-grunge-emo hurricane of hormones and angst, with all three genres circling it. It’s a great blend of all three, and it shows that Bohica are a band with a lot of potential. It’s a song that could be magnificent live. But the demo – and we stress that, at this stage, the band are still referring to it as such – does leave a little bit to be desired.

This is mostly a technical thing. A little bit of refinement, particularly in terms of levels as the track is quite quiet, and we’ll be well on the way to the song that ‘Dry’ wants to be. Give some more presence to the vocals, along with maybe an increasingly hostile vocal performance itself, and we have a song you can’t stop listening to. These are technical improvements, and some we would love to see in the final version of this track!

The band is coming along nicely and ‘Dry’ is a demo with clear aim and intent. It’s available here, where it’s on a ‘pay-what-you-want’ system. But go on, spend a little. Support new music. That’s what you’re here for, right? And that’ll help the band on their way to re-recording this track as the shoemo/emogaze (delete as appropriate) Goliath it screams to be.

It’s like the gift that keeps on giving.

6*/10

* = simply because of recording quality/levels, the song itself borders 7-8/10.