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Review: Canterbury - Heavy in the Day [Album]

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Review: Canterbury - Heavy in the Day [Album]

Sweet Lime // "They are one of the finest groups to emerge in recent years and they’re going to fight to be your new favourite band."

by , and has been Read 1161 times.
Last Edited by: Ffion Davies August 17th, 2012.

Canterbury might not be from the town of their namesake, but nevertheless they are part of what we can safely call the resurgence of great British rock bands. After their 2009 debut Thank You, which they gave away for free, received more than 40,000 downloads their new and highly anticipated record Heavy in the Day safely cements their status as some of the brightest young guns out there and with the likes of We are the Ocean, Lower than Atlantis, and Don Broco for competition the field isn’t as sparse as it once was.

All of the above have cracking new records out in the coming months and are largely much more known which makes the four lads in Canterbury the underdogs; a status they’re going to be shaking sooner rather than later.

The title track which opens the record starts with a mournful immediate sing along of, “Whoa, whoa,” before the calm and buoyant vocals of Luke Prebble kick in narrating us through this journey. It’s simple and beautiful as it defiantly informs you that this is a record that had to be made. Before you think these lads are a bunch of violin loving sissies though they punch you in the gut with the aptly titled ‘Something Better’. Judging by that title and that gutsy guitar lash this is sounding like a jaunty three minutes, but their prose: “I’ve got nothing to cry about, but I’ve got nothing to laugh about,” quickly remedies that. It’s this prosaic quality to their lyrics which ties the album tightly together and adds them to the new canon of Brit-rock titans. They weave together epic choruses with dark and light storytelling, “Lying alone feels wrong, but it’s all for the best, it could be worse we could both be lying,” it’s an album that stings with personal touches, but is also widely relatable. It’s a huge sound that sees the band expand their sound in a much more mature and marketable direction.

WATCH // 'Saviour'


‘Ready Yet’ shows a completely different Canterbury than we have ever seen before, its electro tinges wreak of Cobra Starship and their charismatic alt-dance floor fillers. Its hypnotic rhythms are cut with raunchy guitar shredding and some killer vocal work from Prebble and Mike Sparks. If any track here is going to see Canterbury reach the radio play they desperately deserve it’s sure to be this. From this point on the record experiments with keys, and synths, and drumming so sharp you might mistake it for the computerised variety. No, this is very much man made and it’s made by Scott Peters, a man who is very much the spine of the band’s sound here (‘Wrapped in Rainbows’).

Canterbury are clever sods, they really are and you will probably realise this right around the time the honeyed tones of ‘She’s a Flame’ are entwining you. It’s a pop ballad plain and simple; it has a key change and everything. It charts the turbulence and beauty of love and has a big sweeping chorus: “Where did you find me? Was I asleep? I was having a dream everything fell at my feet, you were there, you felt the same like you always do.” I challenge you to find anything better in mainstream pop right now. After this though is the records first single ‘Saviour’ and with its traditional rock rhythm and frenetic chanted cat calls of: “Put your arms in the air for your saviour, I think I’ve gone too far I need a nervous breakdown,” it’s one of the most obvious songs on the record. The vocals kick with all the enunciated tenacity of Rueben and it’s clear these boys are influenced by that golden age of modern British alt-rock and the likes of Hundred Reasons.

WATCH // 'Ready Yet?'



What makes these boys clever though is their knack for writing vastly different styles of music and in the process becoming too varied to lump into any one category. What is certain about Canterbury though is that they are one of the finest groups to emerge in recent years and they’re going to fight to be your new favourite band.

With a man like Peter Miles (Futures, We are the Ocean) on production duties it’s no wonder this album sounds huge, he and the band along with him have tapped into a distinctly British sound that is immensely popular right now and yet these tracks don’t sound like any of the aforementioned bands. He’s brought the best out of the band on their not so difficult second album and coiffed this record into a work of shimmering urgency that is bookended by tracks which begin and complete the journey in all its melancholic flight, “I’ve seen it all flying by, taking pictures in mind to save talk.”

WATCH // 'Gloria'


“I’ve been making waves, waves you can’t ignore,” sings Prebble on ‘Saviour’ and that is one thing you can trust in Canterbury to do.

Heavy in the Day is out now on Sweet Lime Records

Listen to:
  • Heavy in the Day
  • Garden Grows
  • Saviour
  • Gloria

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