Since getting together towards the end of 2015, it took mere months for Sheffield five-piece Sheafs to turn the head of 6 Music’s Steve Lamacq. He gave the band their first taste of airtime by playing debut single ‘Punchline’ back in March, an entertaining throwback to the gritty, chaotic guitar rock which went down a storm on mid-noughties debut albums from the likes of The Libertines and The Courteeners.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=acN9IT6eZH4
A number of months later they’ve released their own first offering, Nobody’s Watching, and the indie outfit have continued right where they left off with four more energetic, riff-heavy tracks all together clocking in at just under 15 minutes. Naturally, the early Arctic Monkeys and Milburn comparisons will be aired (and at times with good reason), but in title track ‘Nobody’s Watching’ and closer ‘Take Your Exit And Leave Through The Side Door’ it’s the dark basslines and pounding drums which suggests that, if you have to make a Sheffield-based comparison, the band lend more from the Dead Sons school of thought.
It’s a sound that, with the touch of refinement and originality which tends to come from experience, should serve them very well indeed.
6/10
