This is a review of "Untitled" recorded by The Lucida Console. The review was written by Sam Saunders in 2003.

This three track demo starts very bright and clear on some strong arpeggiated guitar, with a movement through to a slowly rising bass and drums crescendo that speeds up a little uncertainly. "Down with Convergence" has a bonkers title, but a very nice sound. Then the mood gets brutalised with some overstruck and rather exposed guitar chords that introduce the vocal bit. It's a rather breathy and slightly aimless tune that wanders between splashing percussion and an elaborate melody in the bass. And then the big build to a crude rock finish, with a Dark Star surge from the bass and a more confident vocal attack. We're almost being invited to admire the technique and control, but there's a slight feeling of under-rehearsal about it that loses the tight edge it needs. The stereo separation is a bit fierce.

The second track is named "Intro", and could easily fill that role for the following track. Its samples evoke the underwater/deep space feel of electro bleeps in general, with some backward sweetly weird stuff. It's a gentle exploration that could have been taken on for twenty minutes or so. Instead there's a slightly wobbly but clean guitar sound that announces the arrival of a song section and another nicely melodic bass part, but no song. The development had strongly suggested a song, but it never came. Maybe that's why it's called "Intro".

In "Distant Town Whereabouts" (unusually in six eight time) it's drums guitar and bass playing games of chase towards (eventually) the sung part, which speeds up and slows down several times with louder and faster contrasting with slower and quieter. (How about slower and louder, or faster and quieter?) Right at the end there's some ugly but proficient AC/DC type guitar thrashing. So it could be Mogwai time.

My mood about this demo chops about like the music on offer. There's a genuine and shining ambition about the creative side of music, and a raw potential for something quite wonderful. But less than a year in seems very early in the band's development to be issuing a demo and there are things they need to sort out about whose kind of music they are making. Sharing members from other bands is a very cool idea, but the musicians need to be more secure in their own identities for it to work really well. I sense these people will soon become an important part of the spreading West Yorkshire music scene. They look like bright people, and some of this stuff is quite demanding. They can play pretty well and they do a decent job of sounding quite leading edge. But my gut feeling is that this is work in progress and isn't ready to be offered up for full critical judgement just yet. I think we need to go hear 'em live. Opening up for Little Japanese Toy would be a good. And maybe they need to make some journeys further out into the musical fringes so they can scare and upset themsleves before bringing back some nice surprises for the rest of us.

Si Marks from Buen Chico plays drums with bandmate Matt Haigh singing and playing guitar. Matt Purdon plays guitar and Scott Hartley plays some adventurous bass. Will Ackroyd contributes keyboard.