Band : Sharp Practice
Album title : Radiocity
Label : Rising
Distributor : Gordeon Music Promotion - SPV
Release date : 07/11/2008 (or. rel.= 2005)
Release : CD

This British band is a weird duckling within the Rising Records roster, as it's not nearly hàlf as heavy as the usual band on that list! In fact, they play a Classic Rock style which is very remeniscent of The Eagles, and has been described in the media as possible to "...go down well with fans of The Counting Crows and Red Hot Chili Peppers..."! The first line of the band's bio at sharppractice.com says it best by simply stating "Sharp Practice are a Classic Rock band but not an over the tope screaming yelling Rock monster...this is the sound of a band who like to keep things quiet and wouldn't say no to an acoustic set...but not tonight: tonight they wanna Rock. And Rock they do!"

Formed in 1999 by Clothier, who recorded the debut album Hiya in 2000 to good reviews, but with session musicians...before actually looking out for the members to act as a true touring band [the most current line-up being Clothier, drummer Jason Lawrence (has played the last coiuple of years in clubs with a host of signed and unsigned bands), bassist Greg Griffin (who's worked with many different organisations and groups, most notably with the National Youth Orchestra Scotland), and guitarist Ben Carter (also a member of Woodside)]! The album did pretty good, and ked to an appearance at Australia's Ground Zero TV and playlisting around the world. Besides getting one song off the album featured on the Rock For Athletes CD produced for Italian sportswear company Fila, another song even got featured on a DVD by Japanese TV star Chieko Mitsui.

The Radiocity album was released on Rising in early 2005, and has written its own bit of Pop Rock history since: individual songs off the album won "Track Of The Day" and "Listener's Pick" awards on garageban.com, and the album itself was given a Kweevak Award in 2006. Songs off the album apparently made it to radio stations worldwide, including US college, Australian indie networks, and numerous Internet radios. The song "Bed Of Rhythm" spent 11 weeks on Australia's World Underground Chart (peaking at #3) and was featured for 10 weeks in the Top 40 mp3s at tourdates.co.uk. In late 2005 over 200,000 copies found their way to fans in France, and the album was issued under licence by German label Whiterock in January 2006, became available in Canada in May of the same year. In April the album's track "Morgan's Creek" got to the #4 spot on the Bandit online chart.

Impressive enough? I'd say so! Though I've no idea if the band still sounds the same today as they did on the Radiocity album. After all, on the album Clothier's band consists of singer/ guitarist Ant Kempster (who's got a very typical slightly nasal, slightly whining voice which makes part of the album's overall mood), with a rhythm section composed by bassist Dave Bronze and drummer Pete Bronze (the latter two may not be so significant for the sound of the band, but the singer sure doés, wouldn't you agree?). Most of the songs are semi-acoustic (and therefore somewhat balladesque) with keyboards moving rather in the supporting role, and soft chanting guitar which occasionally Rocks out for a harder passage of solo! But there's a couple of songs on which the keyboards have a more prominent role, and there's also a couple of songs which have no acoustics at all (not necessarily meaning they're "heavier" overall). On "No Thanks" and "Bed Of Rhythm", the backing vocalist is exchanged for Sarah McCulloch to real wonderful effect. More guests come with Mark Towers playing some sax passages during "Light Of The Day" and Giles King playing harmonica on the otherwize Country-influenced "Morgan's Creek".

I've had the most incredible search trying to find audio material off this album on the Internet, but I eventually found out you can listen to sizeable samples of àll tracks at cdbaby.com/cd/sharpp2 (no "www" needed)! Check it out and enjoy. If you liked the stuff I told about the band, and eventually take the trouble to actually go and listen to the band's music, there's a good chance you'll want to hear more, and go out to actually buy the album! Thanks to the new distribution, you will be able to do so!

90/100

Tony.