Johnny Foreigner – Feels Like Summer

Feels like summer apparently. According to Johnny Foreigner at least. They think it feels so much like summer they’ve named their debut single after how summery it feels. It’s called, ‘Feels like Summer’, and it’s about how the summer feels.In fact, in order to express how much like summer it feels they deem it necessary to repeat the lyric “Some summers” 28 times. That’s quite a lot of times to say summer in a song that lasts only 1:45.

After “Some summers” is yelled initially 12 times, guitarist and vocalist Alexei Berrow sings like an angrier Robert Smith cum Mark E. Smith, albeit without anywhere near the lyrical profundity. It’s where Bloc Party were with their début. Yes, dated. The guitar is punky and the song remains thankfully short.

I’m fine with economical time spans, but this is just ridiculous. You begin to wonder what they’re trying to achieve. Is this trying to be an adolescent celebration? Adolescent maybe, but it’s annoying, and far too turbulent to work on any cerebral level. The song is so short and unremarkable, leave it on repeat and you’ll not know where it starts and where it ends.

‘Feels like Summer’ would be a good live song to briefly mosh around to, or maybe as the intro music to the latest episode of ‘Skins’. However, as a single, it’s so frustrating you’ll be done with it after three listens.

Johnny Foreigner primarily escaped being placed on the landfill indie pile with their début. We only hope that their new album isn’t anything like as mediocre as this, otherwise we can expect a skip load of new additions to the landfill. I don’t want to go all Daily Mail, but I really don’t like Johnny Foreigner.

1/10