The Speedways “Radio Sounds”

We absolutely adored The Speedways debut release “Just Another Regular Summer” (see our gushing review here). The fact that just c12 months later they are back with a new album is fantastic news.

The irony of the title of opening song “This Ain’t A Radio Sound” should be lost on no-one. This type of great power pop song should be played on the radio ALL the time (but of course it never will!). This album is actually chock full of songs that you would want to have blasted out of the radio. Take your pick from tracks like “Empty Pages” and “Telephone Lines”, both of which are just perfect blasts of power pop that Mr Costello would be proud of.

In many ways, the Speedways take us on a tour of pop with a just a bit of added punk spunk. You get the almost Beach Boys feel of “The Day I Call you Mine”, the early Beatles fun pop of “Your Brown Eyes Look So Blue” and moving to the Cheap Trick rocking of “Daydreaming”. That’s all before you move to the unbelievably sublime “Kisses Are History”. A bubble-gum pop song that will quite rightly stick in your head for weeks. A track certainly up for song of the year.

“This Is About A Girl Who Loves” actually brings a nice respite to the albums overall frantic pace. A more subdued track, but one still steeped in melody. Don’t get too complacent though, you’ll soon be up and moving again with the rocking “Number Seven”. Things then take another step up with the brilliant “Good Girls Don’t Break Hearts” and “Had Enough This Time”. These song remind us of the perfect pop/rock of sadly relatively unknown bands like The Star Spangles and Tsar. Bands who, like the Speedways, should be huge.

It is so rare that a band really nails this power pop sound, let alone produces something that sounds as fresh as this release. The fact that The Speedways are based in the UK makes this even rarer. We really don’t get the weather to normally inspire this kind of brilliant pop/rock. At last, we may very well have found our very own Cheap Trick!