Satellite Stories - Pine Trails (2013) Lossless

When Two Door Cinema shuffled their tired pairs of converse on to the British music scene back in 2010, indie-kids the country wide put on their dancing shoes in response to their undeniably addictive shrill guitar loops and tales of adolescent fumbling’s in the dark. But that was then, and this is now. Following their meteoric rise to the top of the Radio 1 A-list, the Northern Irish trio decided not to mess with the formula and so those poppy vocal hooks and easily-danceable guitars have become part of the furniture. Music doesn’t need another Two Door Cinema Club, but unfortunately it’s got one in the form of Satellite Stories.

Pine Trails is so Two Door at times that it’s like listening to one of those god-awful cover albums in your local Matalan branch because the cheapskates don’t want to pay PRS. Even the vocals try to capture that same youthful naivety as Alex Trimble, minus the distinctive Bangor coo. Opener 'Campfire' blasts through intervals of dance floor friendly faux-euphoria and more intimate vocal sections, while 'The Tune of Letting Go' tells the all too familiar youthful tale of crushed hopes and homesickness.

If the now overly-mentioned Two Door had never happened, then Satellite Story’s sophomore would stand up to a little more criticism. In fact, it may have even bothered the bigger double digits of the Top 40. But Two Door did happen, and so in Pine Trails we hear not just the recycling of a sound but plagiarism of it. The musicianship is there, but the originality isn’t.