Four Day Hombre - 'Fight Death' (Alamo) Released 04/12/06

Four Day Hombre have been labelled as potential successors to Coldplay, high praise indeed for a band who have barely just arrived.  A closer look at their CV also reveals they played on the unsigned stage at Leeds Festival this year, triumphing over a plethora of other local rising stars. Thus it seems Four Day Hombre are something to be excited about.
 
However, this mini album is a frustratingly slow starter. ‘Roll up Your Sleeves’ for all its gentle atmosphere becomes clumsy when the keyboards and percussion clutter it up and unfortunately falter a potentially excellent track. ‘Grateful’ sounds similar to Coldplay in both lyrics and piano. It excels when the vocals become urgent and stretched but it still lacks the change of pace which could really dig it out of the rather lonely hole Four Day Hombre have built themselves. ‘Damage Done’ is a nice upturn if only for the simple but hugely satisfying lyrics. “Just another that don’t belong, damage done is damage done,” acts as the first real moment when the hairs on your neck really stand up.
 
‘Is It Any Wonder?’ is the first up tempo track of the mini-album with a heavy sprinkling of indie guitar and wailing backing vocals. The catchiness and potential are there but when they have momentum Four Day Hombre frustratingly fail to find the kick which could really mark the track out. 
 
The EP follows many of these patterns and in turn ends up feeling like an incomplete masterpiece. The ability of this group is immense as is shown by the later track ‘Teach Someone’ in which they finally combine many of these fine elements into a great track. If only they didn’t waste too much time on atmospherics and building the music they might have a killer album in the making.