One Night Only: 'Started A Fire'

Not another one. By that, I mean those faux-indie polished pop acts with a manicured look and sound, devoid of anything resembling substance. Skinny jeans, carefully coiffed ‘messy’ hair and little or no discernible talent.

So, we have One Night Only’s debut, which is produced to the point of being the musical equivalent to a bag of crisps: cheap, undemanding and bearing no nutritional value. Easy pop piano, guitar and synths bounce along chirpily with standardised lyrics about love, longing and having fun, though this is mostly deeply forgettable dross.

Mega-selling single 'Just For Tonight' is pretty catchy Virgin Radio fodder, and starts proceedings adequately, though it’s instantly downhill from there on with track after track of offensively soft rock and sub-Kooks vocal mannerisms. It comes as something of a surprise, then, when a genuinely enjoyable song rears its head with the eighties style jaunt-along 'It’s Alright'. A great piano riff and nicely direct lyrics provide the one moment of respite before the stupidity continues its reign spectacularly with 'Sweet Sugar' and a poor attempt at ‘moody’ with the irritating 'Hide'. Maybe 'Started A Fire' is an ironic title, or if not, it should be.

Released on 11th February 2008 by Vertigo.

Written by Nick Aldwinckle.