Aberdeenshire’s The Broken Creels are a self-described “collaborative catch pulled from the depths of the North Sea.”
And collaborative is the word – while Colin Clyne’s vocals are central to his new single ‘Friend or Foe’, he’s not the egotistic frontman who relegates his peers to backing duties.
Throughout ‘Friend or Foe’, there’s an egalitarian blend between instruments, coalescing neatly together. The mixing is especially clean but that doesn’t prevent each member’s respective performances from lacking in character.
Clyne’s vocals gently growl, his voice genuinely sounding like it’s been plunged from leagues below the sea. Some of the guitar work during the song’s latter half is the necessarily tight accompaniment. It moves assertively with grit and zeal.
It’s a complex narrative too. The song’s lyrics touch on themes of isolation, fear, mistrust and misinformation. That’s a lot and at times it’s too much.
By covering so many themes, some of the lyrical statements appear vague. ‘Seems my face don’t fit in anywhere’ Clyne sings, as if tears are beginning to form an hour into prom night.
It takes until the chorus for the central theme to enter the fold. But a strongly written and performed chorus it is. ‘God I just don’t know/are we friend or foe?’ Within a band whose approach is this equitable, I’m glad they chose friend.