The Red Owls: Do You Feel Any Better?

Artist: The Red Owls
Title: Do You Feel Any Better?
Format Reviewed: MP3
Format Released: 9th October 2015
Reviewed By: Dan Stoten

One of the best things about running a music website is the fact that you're so often exposed to new and brilliant bands. Of course, the opposite can also happen: we've had some shockers in our inbox here at TPA Towers, but you have to take the rough with the smooth, right?

Do You Feel Any Better from New York quartet The Red Owls falls emphatically in the former category. This is a brilliantly polished and smooth EP from a band containing former and current members of The Ataris and Nightmares For A Week.

The EP opens with Bad Advice. It's a slow starter, with a gentle crooning guitar, before dropping sharply into a frenetically-paced punk song, careering from note to note with reckless abandon. It's pretty standard stuff: there's some nice melodic call-and-response here, as well as strong backing vocals behind the lead singer. While it's not going to tick the unique box necessarily, it's very well done and ultimately a very solid start to the EP.

Chaser comes next and ramps it up a notch or two. For me, there's an audaciously good opening riff here, which rumbles aggressively around the speakers before launching into rev-heavy verses and a catchy chorus. It's repeated a number of times throughout the track and instantly got me headbanging: it's just brilliant. There's also some more guttural vocals in Chaser, adding a new layer of aggression and passion to the band's bow.

It's in Chaser that I realised why I'm such a fan of this EP. It's one of those that you feel familiar with instantly. It's not a challenge to listen to: you know what you're going to get with it and sometimes that's nice. It's a really addictive one: after the first listen through, I repeated it again...and again. It's simple melodic punk rock done very fucking well.

Title track Do You Feel Any Better comes next, crashing through your speakers in waves of cymbal and riff. Again there's some gloriously simple revving throughout the verse, a great throwback to when punk rock was simple. The chorus continues the crashing-wave style, with memorable and accessible lyrics. While it's not the strongest song over the four track record, it's by no means bad and would be a strong one live, I suspect.

Party Lines rounds off the EP. It's fast-paced and melodic, with enough energy to run a house off. There's some brilliantly angsty-but-mature lyrics here: it's a grown-up song, not a teenage pop-punk one.

Overall, this is a really very good EP. Clearly the band are experienced and know how to write a track or two: but they've done it with panache and delivered an easily accessible and mature melodic punk record. If you're a fan of Banner Pilot then you'll love this.