KEYSIDE, KEYSIDE

There is something immediately familiar about Keyside’s self titled debut album. The Liverpool band makes no secret of its influences, and you don’t have to listen very hard to hear them. There’s plenty of ’90s Britpop here, along with the long line of melodic British guitar bands that came before and followed. Jangly guitars, big melodies, catchy choruses, it’s a sound we’ve heard plenty of times before. But when it’s done this well, I’m not sure that matters.

Keyside are Dani Lee Parker on vocals and acoustic guitar, Ben Cassidy on lead guitar, Max Gibson on bass, and Oisín McAvoy on drums. Parker and Cassidy first met at a party in 2018, where they played guitar together until early in the morning. After losing touch for a couple of years, they reconnected and eventually formed Keyside with Gibson and McAvoy. The band began releasing music in 2022 and has steadily built an audience around Liverpool and across the UK.

The La’s are the band's biggest influence, while Parker has also pointed to The Coral, The Smiths, and contemporary bands such as Fontaines D.C. and Blossoms as influences. You can also hear The Lathums. He describes Keyside as a snapshot of 21st century Liverpool, and that comes through as much in the lyrics as the music. The songs deal with being young and going out with your friends, but also addiction, difficult family lives, isolation, and grief. Parker often puts his own experiences into characters rather than writing directly about himself.

What makes Keyside work for me is pretty simple, these guys know how to write songs. The guitars are bright and melodic, the choruses are big, and there are hooks everywhere. There may not be much here that you haven’t heard before, particularly if you’ve spent any time with British guitar music over the past thirty years. But Keyside take those familiar sounds and do them so well that you'll think you've been listening to them for years.