Eureka Machines - Remain In Hope Album Review

Leeds' pop rock titans turn to their fans to help fund album number three and reward them with an absolute masterpiece.

After the release of their second album, 'Champion the Underdog', Eureka Machines found themselves at something of a crossroads. Concerned that nobody was particularly bothered about their upbeat rock tunes, calling it a day was on the cards. In a last ditch effort to get this, their third album made, Eureka Machines turned to Pledge Music to crowd fund their album, expecting to limp to their target and scrape the album together with minimal funding. At the time of writing, their Pledge goal stands at 470% with 1064 pledgers. It's safe to say they rather smashed it. As a result, 'Remain In Hope' sounds significantly shinier and more accomplished than anything that came before it, while retaining that trademark Eureka Machines sound which you may have heard in one of the most surreal sequences that ever happened on Emmerdale.

The album lulls you in with the sweet keyboards of 'Good Guys Finish Last', before those huge riffs and even bigger pop choruses start pummelling you from all angles. Theirs is the machine gun staccato riffing of recent single 'Pop Star', featuring satirical, genuinely funny lyrics about geography degrees, suspicious tattoos and tours of primary schools, just to make a living out of music. It is hilarious, but it feels like it is grounded in the real life experiences of this band, representative of countless more, slaving away to try and stay above the poverty line. 'Love Yourself' plants a huge section of beefy riffs into the middle of a perfectly poppy song before the tumbling drums of 'Affluenza' infect you, with hooks lodging in your brain, refusing to leave just like the cold that they are singing about.

This is not just your standard Eureka Machines outing with a little more gloss though. The band have really stretched themselves and dabbled with some new sounds, such as the aggressive punk charge of 'None of the Above', and the ever so slightly Britpop 'Wish You Were Her', which might well be the best thing they have ever written.

The album ends with the euphoric 'Break Stuff' (thankfully not a Limp Bizkit cover) and 'Eternal Machines' which proclaims that the band are 'not old school, we're just old'. If this was to be their swansong, it would have been a fitting end. As it stands, it will not be their swansong and we have more to look forward to from this thrilling band. That they are not as huge as this album sounds is a massive shame, and a reminder that we all need to support local independent music scenes so that talent such as this can grow and spread.

Ben Walton