The Enemy – Gimme The Sign

It’s been a while. Three years to be precise, since the Enemy released their sophomore effort Music For The People. And these days, three years is a hell of a long time in the music business, especially if you’re a young guitar band. The days where said groups ruled the Radio 1 airwaves is long gone, and now, with free download Gimme The Sign, the Enemy are looking to cleave their way back into the public consciousness.

Just stop for a moment and think about the fact that the band’s debut sold 600,000 copies. That’s not just successful, that’s proper double platinum success. The Enemy, of all their contemporaries, felt like a band really going places, the kind of group that might one day take up the mantle from the likes of Kasabian.

But if Gimme The Sign is designed to further their cause, it’s a rather belated affair – too little, too late. Sure, it packs all the raucous punk revivalism that made their debut such an exhilarating affair, but the maturity of No Time For Tears is gone, and the hooks the band previously crafted so well now feel diluted.

It’s sort of like The Enemy coming up with a track based on themselves – and thus, aside from being a bit rougher round the edges, it does little to push the envelope. And for a band that in many ways now stand as outsiders, there’s the general feeling that pushing the envelope is very much what’s needed. Gimme The Sign is not bad, per se, but it tells us little we didn’t already know, instead merely soundtracking a band treading water.

Gimme The Sign is available as a free download from The Enemy’s Facebook page.