This is a review of "8PM" recorded by Nursery. The review was written by Dave Sugden in 2000.

I've only ever seen Nursery once, on that occasion they were opening up for Icelandic outfit Bellatrix over in Bradford, but from all accounts I remember it being quite a memorable set. I remember that the band were currently being hyped, and on reading their press details it was around the time that Steve Lamacq had them as his "Unsigned Band of the Week" after their "She's So" demo release. So there you go, in case you are interested. Oh, and they played at this year's Leeds 2000 Festival.

Onto their music and the one observational comment I can make about their 2-track demo is that singer Innis Stiles provides such amazing emotive vocals. Both tracks do draw you in to his style, both are very British sounding - despite having L.A. raised Zak on guitar - and both have some pretty captive harmonies too from drummer Matt. Sound wise and Nursery are very melodic, described in the past as a mixture of The Smiths, Jeff Buckley, Neil Young, Radiohead and Travis. I wouldn't 100% agree with this list though, but I've given them all a mention as it does paint a wide, but equally memorable picture of what you'd expect from the CD.

The guitars are all very clean, except for a moment of "crunch" after 2 minutes of "8PM". Both tracks are fantastically foot tapping in nature; and despite the lyrical content - "8PM" is about finding your girl upstairs in bed with someone else at a party - it's all very upbeat in nature. Put this altogether it shows an impressive creativity to their song writing.

I'd say that "8PM" just about takes the honours with me, though I really did like both tracks pretty equally. All in all they more than match the quality currently on show by the leading band in Leeds at the moment. (By default, Nursery must surely be included in that list).

The one niggle, if you accept it as such, is that I don't think I could listen to a whole set of similar songs. I do hope that they have some depth to their song writing, though I don't think this is really in doubt. I shall make my mind up on that count when I see them live again. On the CD alone, though there are no criticisms.

Finally, imagine if you will the following and cringe like I did, "Move your left hand as close to his face as possible. Grab his chin with your palm, whilst sliding your right hand down directly between his legs. Grab and Crush". Was that really necessary? Ouch.