This Demo starts with the powerful and dynamic sound of ‘Deep Green’, this song has a lot of movement, with strong and catchy vocal patterns. This trend continues into ‘Like Music’ with nice melodic guitars that softly kick in and out to create atmosphere and dynamic. The keyboards mix soft scales in a similar way to Coldplay or Keane and by quickening in tempo, they have much more crunch and keep the songs upbeat. The drumming is simple but tight and powerful keeping a consistent beat and providing the trampoline for the other instruments to jump off, at times though it gets a bit bland and a few complex fills or changes in style would add something to the music. The vocals are very strong, both in lyric and tune and this is what really holds Sweetbriar’s songs together. The vocalist has a really easy voice to listen to and it is full of emotion, using some nice patterns and clever hooks, The 3rd and 4th tracks (‘Keeping An Eye On You and The Substitute’) don’t have quite the impact of the earlier efforts and I felt they ran out of ideas at times. Even though the vocal stays strong throughout this demo and the melodies were really catchy. I’d like the music to be more diverse though and some more changes in power and tempo at times wouldn’t go a miss, but with such a strong vocal performance and the good balance between the guitars, bass and keyboards providing the melodies, Sweetbriar certainly have a catchy and interesting twist on the indie-rock genre.
Review by Gaz
