Santa Barbara four-piece Tommy & The High Pilots first formed five years ago in 2008. In that space of time they have released two albums (with Only Human being their third) and an EP. Most of Tommy & The High Pilots' songs are, at their core, slices of catchy pop with sun kissed Californian guitar licks. But like every pop band with a drummer and guitarist they've been saddled with the somewhat confusing 'indie-pop' label.
"Only Human", the album's title track, is one of the songs on the album that stands out. It's all chugging guitars and elevated vocals, yet somehow seems to maintain a tame sense of calm. It has the inevitable sea of "woah-ohs" thrown in at the end, which you'd be forgiven for thinking were thrown in there just for the sake of it. The song does contain a formula which quickly appears to be present on almost every song on the album, the crafty and often used silent acoustic verse leading to a bellowing crescendo of a chorus. This formula works on occasion, but when it's used for a full album of songs this results in the tracks mirroring each other.
"Young & Hungry" starts off promisingly, coupling frazzled guitar feedback with yelping vocals. Yet again, after a few seconds, that all too familiar quiet-loud-quiet-loud formula dictates the song. At times it seems as though the band have been given an instruction book for the basics of songwriting and have followed it rigidly and applied it to almost every song. This predictability has marred the sound of what could be an otherwise very promising album.
Elsewhere "Somebody Make a Move" has the sound of the sun-kissed west coast, using subtle bass lines and layered vocals that give this slice of pure pop an upbeat and engaging sound. It sounds more relaxed and noticeably less formulaic than the other tracks on this album. Following on from this "Innocent" sounds like early Maroon 5 with a slightly heavier sound. It's a good song, but the sound is nothing new and once again that ever-present formula is becoming increasingly more obvious and predictable.
The only point in which this album seems to possess its own unique sound is on the final track. "Painted Cave" is the point when Tommy & The High Pilots come into their own, and shed the quickly irritating hit-making formula that permeates the rest of Only Human. Here Tommy Cantillon's vocals drive the song, while a volley of drums and guitars punctuate the chorus with increasing vigour.
There are glimpses of potential in Only Human, like the skillful guitar playing on "Young & Hungry" and the ethereal, earnest sounding "Painted Cave". But the predictability that becomes swiftly apparent after the first few songs makes it difficult to distinguish between the songs on this album and every other indie-pop song that's constantly being played on the radio. Only Human has shining moments, where creativity seems to burst through, but those moments are short-lived when the song inevitably falls back into what seems to be a largely uncompromising and uninspired structure which overshadows the majority of the tracks on Only Human.
See also
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