The path through rock music can be a treacherous one. There's gold if you look in the right places, but go just slightly wayward and you'll stumble upon some truly awful bands and songs. There can be no denying that London's Escapists are a rock band, but one that may be prefixed by the words "alternative" or "indie", themselves broad terms that can lead to good or bad. Despite being around for a few years now, new single 'Breaking It Up' is the first time we've heard this quartet, and on the strength of this we'd say they're one of the good finds. For a long time now, alt-rock has meant a DIY sound and scoffing at anything approaching ambition or, worse still, making music that has the chance of selling more than just half a dozen copies to some pissed-up punters at one of your gigs.
Big. bold and aiming high, Escapists are making music to sound as good as it possibly can, and when doing this, taste is or paramount importance. Only the misguided masses like stadium sheen to be applied to formulaic anthems; it's music for people who buy one or two albums a year, probably whichever ones Q magazine votes as albums of the year. 'Breaking It Up' gets the balance just right; the band use the studio to great effect, making this single sound great, giving it a certain commercial appeal, but never over-egging the pudding, never falling into the trap of making sanitised stadium fodder. Just because a band becomes big it doesn't make them the enemy (or, God forbid, The Enemy) and it doesn't make them bad. Depending on whether guitar bands begin slipping back into fashion again, Escapists, on this evidence, have what it takes to be one of those big bands, and deservedly so.
Escapists' website
Buy the single
Catch them live:
Feb 01 Borderline, London, United Kingdom
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