EP REVIEW: Tomorrow I’ll Be Scared Again – Our Nameless Boy

After forcing their way through five years of treachery, and more importantly: courage, OUR NAMELESS BOY finally have a debut EP to call their own. Stricken with testicular cancer in 2015 – vocalist Iain Gorrie is thankfully still here to stand at the helm of Tomorrow I’ll Be Scared Again – a five track bonanza of emotive emo rock. But perhaps the biggest compliment you could pay Gorrie and co here is that the bands tragic, yet fascinating back story is not the fundamental reason this EP is noteworthy. Instead what we have here is a record which has character that extends further than either fragility, or morbid curiosity.

Tomorrow I’ll Be Scared Again is book-ended by two tracks that truly pump life into the veins of OUR NAMELESS BOY. Both Waste Away and Nover sit in a wonderful space between PUPPY and THE WONDER YEARS, as you’d expect – it’s enthralling. Sombre guitar nuances bleed into high pitch choruses with a silk flow, as vocalist Gorrie holds the turntable in place with his echoing cries of melody. The quartet find their zenith here – the dichotomy between feel good chorus and melancholic verse is a stiff jab to take, but let it settle and this is punky emo rock at its most respectable.

The same level of magic is never quite realised throughout the rest of the EP, but thankfully OUR NAMELESS BOY never become uninteresting. The one-two of All It Is and Nothing On My Mind keep things ticking along nicely, with the latter bringing a welcome, yet unexpected RADIOHEAD vibe thrown into the flurry.

All things considered, the mere existence of Tomorrow I’ll Be Scared Again is commendable, and OUR NAMELESS BOY should be lauded for not being defeated by the occasion. But look deeper and there’s a perfectly competent EP here that opens doors for the quartet in areas that they may not have been expecting, this is a record that sounds like a legitimate alternative effort in the best way possible. If this band double down on the formula that brings them the most success – we could have quite a story on our hands.

Rating: 7/10

Tomorrow I’ll Be Scared Again is out now via Beth Shalom Records.

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