Single of the Week: Boomerang by Ships Have Sailed

Ever since I heard Bring You Down, the explosively excellent track from Ships Have Sailed’s Someday EP, I’ve been waiting for that confirmation single from the LA three-piece. You know what I mean- you hear one amazing song by a band, and you like the rest of their stuff well enough, but there has to be one more stop-what-you’re-doing good track before you’d officially obsess about them on Twitter.

Well, Ships Have Sailed can firmly count me among their dedicated fans. I’ve been following the release of their debut full-length album, Moodswings (out early March- for Christ sake’s, buy it), for a while now, and it was only earlier this evening that I got round to listening to it’s lead single, Boomerang. Folding my clothes, I dropped my leather skirt and lay down on the floor so I could listen to this three times in a row.

I’m a self-admitted sucker for really, really good pop music. And this has everything I’d want from great pop- cracking vocal hooks, a chorus that made me screw up my face with glee, and off-beat guitar patched in under powerful vocals that made me want to hear this live, like, right now. It’s got that brilliant build that instantly tattoos itself on your brain like Bring You Down, but it’s a grown-up, first-album track. It’s what I wanted most from them since I heard their EP last year; proof that I was unarguably right about how good they were. And you all know how much I love being right.

Ships Have Sailed: Someday EP Review + Exclusive Free Download

We get a lot of music to review here at Jukebox HQ (the space between my ashtray and my wall), and sometimes something really does stand out. And I’m not just saying that because we’ve been generously bestowed with a free download for you to enjoy: I’m saying that because I think Someday EP from Ships Have Sailed is pretty awesome.

The album opener is by far my favourite; Midnight is a slice of warm, dreamy pop that’s easy-listening in the best possible way: a slickly produced, densley layered piece of zeitgeist pop that lands somewhere between the life-affirmation of Fun. and the big sound and big vocal hits of Tove Lo. The second single, Bring You Down, sounds like classic rock as realised by a bunch of synthy surfer boys-soaring chorus, heavy on the vocal hooks, and full of Yellowcard-esque angst. It’s good, clear-eyed pop, and all the better for it. These songs stand out just by their sheer sense of bravado and unapologetic sense of glory-hunting-there’s a strength and an honesty to Bring You Down and Midnight that raises the album beyond a stuttering first foray into recorded music and has kept the record spinning on my proverbial gramaphone for the last couple of days

Just to Get Through, Clouds and title track Someday are all driven by the misty-eyed, summer-guitar SoCal feel you’ll find all over festivals over the next few months.The album takes a darker turn with the guitar-driven Better Off, blending ragged-at-the-edges vocals with punchy guitar riffs and ambition. This is what you’re supposed to do with a debut EP-show off all the sides of what you can do while holding it together with a cohesive sound and clear ideas at it’s center.

And don’t forget your free download of Bring You Down.

Someday EP by Ship Have Sailed will be released 15/7/14.