Young Libertine EP review: Thrilling call of The Wilde

Whatever local rock band The Wilde are on, make mine a double.

So much sheer fizz is packed into Young Libertine, their debut five-track EP, it’s a wonder they don’t burst.

But the amazing thing about this pulsating five-piece isn’t the energy – mssrs Tommy Fleming, George Tyreman, Josh Gotting, Jack Meredith and Mike Turnbull have always had that in spades, even in their not-so-long-ago days of playing in the dark of Rehab in Harrogate.

What impresses so much is the surprising amount of sophistication on show, that and the non-stop flow of poppy hooks.

As produced by Bruce Rintoul at 45 A Side Studios in Glasgow, this is simply flawless stuff - all the way from opening song, Until Next Time, a recent single, to the cracking, anthemic Bad Bones, the current single, to the closing title track.

Every second sounds warm, shiny and fantastic. Every quirk of arrangement, instrumentation and passionate vocals delivered right on the money.

Little hints of other bands do flit in and out of the band’s cohesive juggernaut mix of pop, punk, hard rock, metal and, occasionally, mild traces of funk rock.

You might feel like throwing in names like Funeral for a Friend or Panic at the Disco or Fall Out Boy or Don Broco. But that would be lazy journalism.

This barnstorming, feel-good outfit always come across as 100% themselves as they bounce and barge their way through a gloriously upbeat collection of tracks.

It’s possible to argue that this fast-growing young band have yet to conjur up one classic-riffed song to put them in the very top tier of rock bands or that the basic template on this EP’s five impressive tracks will have to be expanded and diversified at some point.

But that’s for the future. As for now, “the start of something really special” is how Rock Sound magazine described The Wilde.

Damn right.