GRAPHIC FICTION HEROES – Who Will Save Us Now?

Shane | 5 December 2012 | Reply

Label: Noise-A-Thon Records
Released: 9 December 2012
Reviewed by Shane Pinnegar
8.5/10

We all know the experience of a song getting stuck on a loop in your mind – “Ear worms” they call them, and the experience can be good or bad, depending on the song! (I once had Jeremiah Was A Bullfrog stuck in my head for a week – and still bristle at the thought of the song), and earworms abound on this album (in a good way!).

Chris Gibbs follows up his cult favourite semi-acoustic 2009 solo album Little Empires with Graphic Fiction Heroes’ debut album Who Will Save Us Now, and it is CHOCK-A-BLOCK full of impossibly catchy melodies, hooks that could land a whale, and memorable riffs and choruses from wall to wall.

After making Little Empires, Gibbs, drummer Matthew Ferguson and bassman Gareth Hughes gigged incessantly, becoming a solid unit and formalising the arrangement with the new band moniker and Ferguson & Hughes’ inclusion in the songwriting process for this album.

Musically, Gibbs was determined to rock out on this album, but his acoustic guitar still gets plenty of workouts, providing a cool intro and bedrock on opener Too Highly Strung and nice counterpoints on First And Last and more.

The irresistible melodies that are the calling card of Cheap trick, Enuff Z’nuff and The Wildhearts all come to mind when listening to Who Will Save Us Now? – every track a killer, the whole album will keep spinning in your head long after the CD player has shut down.

Lyrically thought provoking and touching, GFH cover territory such as missing social gatherings due to working nights on First And Last (such is the nuanced layers Gibbs & Co bring to the songwriting, this song will also strike a chord with anyone who has worked restaurants, bars, as a cop or anywhere that had them working late whilst their friends were out to play).

Just One Thing and Missing You are radio hits waiting to happen, Another Day Like This is a touching Beatles pastiche with Beach Boys elements, all tied up in a tasty bundle that is uniquely Gibbs – it’s a great song and one which may not be as immediate as some of the others previously mentioned, but creeps up on the listener like a stealthy big cat on the prowl.

Closing the album is a suburban blues rocker in Poor Middle Class White Boy Blues – a tip of the hat to Gibbs’ wry sense of humour.

Who Can Save Us Now? Is a wonderful album that summons up influences as diverse as KISS, The Beatles, Cheap Trick and more, and digests them whole before processing them into an album which is relentlessly good and deserves to be heard by any fan of melodic rock n’ roll.