Dance, You're on Fire - Secret Chiefs

You can't shake the feeling that new pop-rock is the new disco. No matter how able the musicians in bands seem, they are obviously loathe to explore their own creativity to the point of absurdity.

Case in point, Dance You're on Fire, who have produced an album that's all good and well for trying to get on radio or tv or festival stages or whatever. But as a musical impression of what a group of musicians is capable of, it's just another poprock album that fades into obscurity the moment you eject it from the player.

A great pity that rock bands in general – and DYOF specifically in this case - don't occasionally step outside the idea of "selling" their "sound".

If DYOF did, they'd definitely make more songs like "Michelle", easily one of the most listenable songs on Secret Chiefs, especially when they prophetically sing "I learned how to get over myself." The song reflects this – at least in the sense that they produced a song, and not recorded a band playing a song.

If only more young bands would realise that on an album especially, it's not necessary for the whole band to play all the time, with a particularly big distortion on the upbeat chorus, and three-note meandering melody line.

DYOF are so obviously a pretty good band – I actually like their energy and their regular moments of lyrical flare. But like most of their peers in the global industry, they're self-constrained into sounding how they think the market wants them to sound.