AFFILIATES
Hearts Under Fire are a four piece girl band from Surrey and are comprised of Lexi Clark (drums) Nicky Day (rhythm guitar) Steph Farrow (lead guitar) and Mary O’Regan (bass and vocals). At first, I initially formed dissatisfaction towards them with the beat of the first song offering a resounding similarity to an Alkaline Trio song. However, by the time I had got half way through listening to the first song ‘Liquid Luck’ I had soon forgotten this feeling of bad taste and found myself moving about to the beat. Throughout listening, I became increasingly captivated by their incredibly catchy beats matched alongside singer Steph Farrows very powerful and incredibly sincere sounding voice. There was a very commanding sense of youthful energy and passion given off through each individual song combined with a cute attitude full of spunk and raw talent unmatched by any girl fronted band I have been exposed to recently. I find myself particularly fond of the group vocals and harmonies, particularly in the chorus of ‘It’s Not Me, It’s You’ which stood out as my favourite on the EP as I particularly loved the gang vocals towards the end of the song which gave a very heartfelt notion to its sound. Although I must say my attention dwindled slightly by the third track I was soon won over again by the time I reached the final track on the EP ‘Animals’ which re-enforced the ballsy and melodic sounds I had enjoyed in the first two tracks and converted me once again. Despite having received comparisons to bands such as Rise Against and AFI I feel like this band have a rather unique and edgy sound yet still having the very conventional pop-punk feel which will leave them incredibly listenable for lovers of this genre. Overall, I find them a rather refreshing and exciting girl-fronted band and look forward to seeing more from them in future!