I usually take one look at any release that includes the word “Demos”, either in the title or the promo blurb, listen to one track, indulge in some richly undeserved music snobbery (especially considering I cannot play a note except the main hook of Depeche Mode‘s I Just Can’t Get Enough on an organ, with one finger), mumble rude utterances like ‘come back when it’s finished’ and move onto something more fully formed.

This Demos EP, by newly formed (only started in May 2021), Rhode Island foursome, Fort Revere, forces me to bypass a natural arrogance, that generally concludes that demos should be confined to one of the 7,842,529 e-mails I receive around Bandcamp Friday and reluctanly revisit my attitudinal dysfunction around the whole issue.

Initially, opener, What To Say, immediately pulls you in. All Harrison Whitford style spacious / distant / isolated vocals (choose any 2 from 3), juxtaposed with an added left field grumbling baritone, the track cavorts with surf pop with a Charlie Duda style jangled riff that takes you directly to the sort of ear-worm territory that seems to make your mouse repeatedly gravitate to it to satiate a need for repeated listens. Similarly, Fun In The Sun and Flower Waiting to Bloom present the same qualities of absolute mouse catnip.

Its not all surf respledence though. Another Day and Without You assume a more hazy, fuzzy, dense guitar sound, that is reminiscent of the Beat Happening / The Minutemen aesthetic, whereas Summer Girls With Autum Smiles dabbles in the jangly-dream-meets-gaze sound that a modern act like Cinema Lumiere offers.

I see from their Instagram page that this Jack Downey led project is gigging. Let’s hope there is another release on the nearby horizon. I will even do the demos things again !!!

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