Orphan Boy/ Passion, Pain & Loyalty

Orphanboy
Passion, Pain & Loyalty
(Concrete Recordings)

If you were born after 1990 than chances are you won’t have heard of The Waterboys – a slightly Celtic indie band that employed fiddles and all sorts to gather a fanbase of smelly hippies in the mid 1980s.
It’s this band – along with The Verve – who Orphanboy most resemble. There’s an epic teenage romance to tracks like ‘Popsong’, which sounds like it’d be great to strut down the street to.
The group don’t just do widescreen man-on-journey music either: ‘1989’ is a humble piano pop number which builds up with childlike simplicity into something resembling a skip in a step. Later, ‘Untitled 9’ bounces along on a tropical bongo drum, and feels light headed with excitement.
Orphanboy may sound like a fairly decent indie band on first listen, but I’m inclined to suspect there’s a whole lot more going on with them. Worth a peek for sure.