The Leeds-based five-piece will drop their self-titled LP on March 3rd, but is it more eagle or seagull? Perhaps someone has already come up with that, but this album feels like both across its 10 tracks, swaying between a sense of wonderful intrigue and ear-piercing doubt.

There is a bunch of mysterious openings and dark riffs to get interested in, with opener ÔÇÿNerve EndingsÔÇÖ suggesting that a big album is on its way. The lead guitar and bass share the limelight in this song, with the sudden shouts of lead singer George Mitchell bringing the angst through lyrics of insecurity, confusion and uncertainty. These are the topics of most of the songs, something pretty apparent with titles such as ÔÇÿFester/BlisterÔÇÖ and ÔÇÿPossessedÔÇÖ, the latter recently performed on American primetime television.

The problem is that the real meat of the album is made up of the same particles; the vocals never divert from a narrow course, rarely does a pace change liven up a song, and the guitars reverberate to such an extent as to be overdone. Granted, this can be seen as focussed and perhaps such ingredients will make your ideal 35 minutes, but such noise is difficult to tame into a great rock song, thus no single track stands out as a killer tune.

With the increasingly common dingy-Britain album cover and a brooding lead singer you could mistake Eagulls for another alternative punk band found wanting of a breakout single. In reality, through the niggling issues of this album there shows prospects for bigger and better. Of course this debut will not be the band at their zenith; fortunately for now we must settle on the hope that there is potential to master their sound and join the mass ranks of quality modern bands that Britain is producing.

3/5