Ten Second Epic - Hometown Album Review

Having made their independent debut in 2004, Canadian quintet Ten Second Epic actually released this, their third album, last year and it now receives a UK push. In support of this the band are playing 13 dates across England throughout May, culminating in a London show at the Islington Academy.

Based on the evidence of 'Hometown', Ten Second Epic are one of the most inappropriately named bands of recent times, for the album clocks in at a bloated 50 minutes and is at no point grand. In fairness they're a competent punk-rock outfit and this is clear straight from 'Welcome To Wherever You Are', but their bright guitar riffs are nothing new and the band regularly sound like a poor man's New Found Glory.

There's plenty of fun and energetic offerings - 'Well, That's The Thing', 'Stand Up' and 'Further Now' being examples - but wherever you start to listen to the album it fails to hold interest for more than a handful of tracks because of a lack of variety and standout quality. Even the guest female vocals provided by Lights on 'Every Day' fail to disguise it is still very much punk-rock by numbers on what is a distinctly mediocre record. Sure enough there will be fans, but TSE are far from joining the genre's frontrunners.

Alex Lai