An unspoken promise unfulfilled

It’s no secret that I’m a huge fan of great lyricists and the lyrical value of every track I listen to. My belief is if you’re creating a track with any sort of vocal element, it better be a damn good vocal in terms of both sound and content. Anything less and you may as well just release an instrumental track.

So Cherry Shoes’ latest track ‘Ride On’ upsets me a little bit. I honestly don’t want to slate this band. They’ve got potential. Musically,  ‘Ride On’ is a spellbinding wave of psychedelic rock-pop. Even the vocal, in terms of melody and delivery, is on point. It’s well crafted and gives off a strangely late 80’s/90’s British music scene vibe, without sounding dated by this.

I suppose the lyrics play into this quite well. But, something is missing lyrically for me. It feels lacking and simplistic. On one hand, this plays fantastically into that 90’s vibe the track has going on and it also lets the music stand at the forefront of your mind. But I find the lack of substantial lyricism jarring. It makes the track fall short of everything the music builds it up to be, leaving just an unspoken promise unfulfilled.

This is the only track Cherry Shoes have released to date, so I have no benchmark to compare it to. Perhaps it’s just not the greatest example of their songwriting capabilities. I definitely don’t want to, and won’t, dismiss a band capable of crafted such fine music on the back of one song that doesn’t hit all the marks for me.

The track is below. Am I being too harsh? Judge for yourself. I look forward to hearing more from the band in the future, in the hopes I am wrong.