The Ormidales are songwriters Mark Branscombe and Bill Oliver, from East Vancouver. After a long break from writing, MTV approached the band to licence one of their previous creations and brought them back to the recording studio.

The description on the inside cover of the album states the band's intent "to create songs that meandered through the sounds and genres of pop music", using their influences as the basis of their sound. On their Myspace page, the band list among their influences The Beatles, Bryan Ferry and even the Righteous Brothers! As you listen to the album, you can definitely hear these influences, but I'm not entirely sure that they are actually helping the band.

There is no denying that the album is well produced. It arrived in the Insiders' postbox in a proper CD cover with artwork and the quality and balance of the recording is perfect. The music is quite good, it reminds me of the bands they stated in their influences and is played to a good standard, but then the singing hits. These guys are songwriters by their own admissions, the problem is they can't seem to sing. The bottom notes are sharp and the top notes are flat and it feels like they've had a good bottle of whiskey before starting to sing! It feels like the session singer didn't arrive so the guys had to put their own lyrics on top of the music they had already recorded.

I worry I'm starting to feel sorry for The Ormidales. There is no denying they can make good songs, but the vocals are really letting the whole sound down! I would really like to hear some of these songs with a good singer making the most of them, but at the moment this wont go too far in the UK market.

Rating 5/10

Reviewed by Fi