Formed out of the remnants of This Ain’t Vegas, Coal Train rise form the ashes as a rock infused indie-pop four piece from Sunderland.

Known primarily, or at least in musical terms, as being the city that produced The Futureheads, Coal Train have produced a sound that is entirely, and wonderfully, different from their home town counterparts.

Building Dens‘ saw Coal Train‘s first furore into the realm of released music under their new guise, gaining a great deal of attention from many bloggers and critics alike. However with their second single release, ‘Tall Ships‘, the band has produced a track wholly more upbeat and infectious effort that details a metaphorical journey down the River Wear. The track begins rather unassumingly, until a moment of choral vocals sparks into life jangly guitars and percussion, laced with a dose of light hearted piano which immediately engages the listener. However only seconds later, the track falls back into a period of quiet rest bite, before then moving back into a flurry of instrumental joy. These fluctuations echo the sentiment of the song, as these periods of differing tempo feel like water from a river lapping against a shore, or the differing in speed of water a river encounters as it transverses through different terrain. As a result, ‘Tall Ships‘ keeps the listener engaged by allowing them to be absorbed into the journey of the track, with lead singer Richard Amundsen‘s vocals narrating throughout the course. Amundsen‘s vocals on the track are driven yet personal, with a real sense of anguish combusted with a thankful relief, and ultimately acts as the final ingredient to a track that has the jovial nature of an indie-pop tune, with the integrity and gritty nature of a rock sound.

8/10

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COAL TRAIN – Tall Ships (free digital single) from Coal Train on Vimeo.