Glyder – Playground For Life

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impulse buy

True Talent
Produced by Alwyn Walker & Glyder

Rivaling The Answer for best new Irish rock band, Glyder are now on album number two and have secured themselves, amongst other things, a support slot with Fish and a spot on the Sweden Rock Festival 2008 bill. Not bad after just one month of the year.

Playground For Life initially looks to be a much harder album than their Thin Lizzy-ish self-titled debut, with bigger, heavier riffs, a little more variety and more of their own identity as on opener Gamblers Blues Glyder are far more southern-flavoured than an Irish band has any real business being. They maintain the groove on Sweets with an almost swing feel to the basslines and drum patterns (increased use of bass seeming to be a feature of their ‘new’ sound) but then hit a weak point by getting a little too radio friendly on Puppet Queen, a much more indie-oriented track with more than a hint of Madness.

In actual fact many of the tracks hereafter show great rock promise early on, then spoil it with an indie-like chorus. The title track, for instance, brings back some heavy rock riffs just before the chorus and certain parts of For Your Skin beautifully touch on Lynyrd Skynyrd territory, and both have great solos, but far too much attention has been given to trying to give each track a catchy modern chorus when just letting them be rock songs would have worked a lot better.

Walking My Own Ground goes straight back to the Thin Lizzy sound of their debut and remains a solid song throughout, Dark Meets Light unfortunately has no dark at all (more Thin Lizzy-isms with less appeal), Sleeping Gun offers a nice ballad melody to start with but again becomes an indie song, Over And Over leaves hints of the rock sound they’re capable of but doesn’t quite deliver and closer The Merrygoround fails to really get going at all. A neat bonus DVD with all their videos to date from the first album and some documentary type footage of their first three years recording together as Glyder is a nice touch which adds value for money, but isn’t enough to quell the disappointment that, for a band making their name as a hard rock act, there’s just not enough rock on this album.

With the wonderful grooving Gamblers Blues and the numerous solos so much was promised but too many times on this album a lingering feeling that the band just aren’t pulling out all the stops and rocking like they should won’t go away. The Answer definitely have nothing to worry about for now.

“ doesn’t quite deliver ”

Tracklist: Gamblers Blues / Sweets / Puppet Queen / Playground For Life / For Your Skin / Walking My Own Ground / Dark Meets Light / Sleeping Gun / Over And Over / The Merrygoround
Bonus DVD: Documentary: The Next Two Years / PUP (Pretty Useless People) video / PUP (Pretty Useless People) uncensored video / Saving Grace video / One For The Lost video / Documentary: First Year / Sattitude live on RTE Two as H’llyw”d

Written by Andy Lye
More: Albums, Rock, Glyder