Review Summary: Catchy.
Catchy vocals? Check. Catchy guitars? Check. Catchy drums? Check. Audible bass? Surprisingly, check.
Walking With Mirrors is a Sydney alternative rock band that have yet to break out on a national level, however it’s an entirely plausible future. This is a band where there really is one word to sum them up, and you should have worked out by now that it’s “catchy”. I don’t mean pop catchy either, this isn’t music by numbers. Their sound doesn’t seem planned at all, but rather grew naturally in a way that allows its tendrils to root themselves in your brain and play themselves back to you hours after you finished listening.
Not that you expect this upon first listen, they seem like a run of the mill alt rock band with bad lyrics and clean guitars. It’s only afterwards, when you walk away and find your mind keeps returning to the melodies and riffs. Then, on second listen it begins to really sink in and hook into you. It’s a vicious cycle and before too long the EP is on repeat. The typical, relationship focused lyrics are excused by the passion and conviction with which vocalist Ryan Burke sings them. The instruments themselves never do anything really fancy, there’s the odd guitar solo or interesting drum fill (the bass is important to the overall sound, but its generally just there) but really they’re at their best when they come together and create a sound that’s…well it’s just damn catchy.
Out of the hundreds of local bands vying for attention on a bigger scale, Walking With Mirrors certainly have the raw talent – and the right kind of music – to make it, but whether they’ll be one of the fortunate ones or they get drowned in the clamouring noise is yet to be seen. I can only hope they do.
