Nothing But Thieves are a 5-piece band from Southend, England, who have been gaining momentum through a couple of single releases, backed by some interesting videos. In my opinion their latest release "Trip Switch", for which the official video came out last week is my favourite tune of theirs so far.
The first thing that you notice about the song are the vocals provided by Conor Mason. The band's biography describes his vocals as "angelic and soaring", and that description is certainly apt in terms of describing his contribution to this song. When I hear the vocals there is a certain similarity to the way that Matt Bellamy from Muse sings his lyrics, where he beautifully varies from a delicately beautiful touch in the verse to a powerful soaring delivery in the chorus.
It's a pretty funky tune, but with a rock edge to it, which seems to be a thread heard throughout their music. The guitarists, Dom and Joe, compose some interesting guitar melodies that accompany the vocals really well. There is a really cool riff in the verse, accompanied by a muted guitar part that comes in and out, that feels that it goes out of key and then resolves itself right at the end of the line.
From listening to their tracks it feels like that scale is somewhat representative of their approach, they have enough unusual elements that will separate this band from the legions of rock bands that pop up on the landscape of British music every year. Another element being a dark and moody video that never quite lets you know where it is going to end up.
An album is scheduled to be released in autumn and let's hope it does not fall victim to the album delay element that can stall many a promising young bands career.
