EP Review

Sophomore - The Blue EPSophomore – The Blue EP

Decade frontman Alex Sears is a workaholic when it comes to music, if he is not busy releasing new material and touring the toilet sized venue circuit with his pop-punk band Decade then he is busy working on his own solo stuff under the alias of Sophomore, where he has already put out a 3 track EP and also covered classic songs such as Lana Del Rey’s ‘Blue Jeans’ and Paul McCartney’s ‘Wonderful Christmastime’ and now he is kicking 2013 off with the release of ‘The Blue EP’.

‘The Blue EP’ is a brand new offering from Sophomore, it features 4 tracks and gives Alex Sears the chance to branch away from the sound and style of Decade and go in whatever direction his creativeness wants to take him in at any time, the EP opens with ‘Young Adult’ a song which features Sears playing his guitar in a real chilled out way, the song takes a little build of time to build up but as soon as the soaring vocals come in from Sears you just know that the next 13minutes or so are going to be pleasing on the ears.

‘Caged’ is a solid track where the vocals from Sears really shine, as he lets out a lot of power and emotion in his vocals which really grab your attention and make you put all your concentration on the next 3minutes, the song flows in a way where things go from being mid paced to nearly stopping completely at moments before the big build up to mid paced action comes again and again.

‘XYZ’ and ‘House Spider’ close the EP, both songs stand out on their own ‘XYZ’ more for the fact that it is a real basic sounding track where Sears vocals do all the talking and ‘House Spider’ because it is slightly different from the rest of the EP and see’s Sears use different vocal styles from the rest of the EP, whilst various soundscapes give the song an overall spooky edge.

You really can’t fault Alex Sears the man has made a beast of an EP with ‘The Blue EP’ and I personally can’t wait to see what he releases next under the Sophomore alias, whether it is a set of new songs or even some more cover songs I am sure it is going to be worth the wait.

5/5

Review by Trigger

 Band Members

Alex Sears
 Track Listing
1. Young Adult
2. Caged
3. House Spider
4. XYZ
 Band Related Links
Sophomore Facebook
 Review Score Code
- Top Cheese
- Brilliant
- Pretty damn good
- Ok I guess
- What Was That?