Mia Hope

We Are Just Satellites

By Jack Ready

I’m going to level with you. I’m not a metal fan. I went through a Trivium phase when I was 13, and the Killswitch cover of ‘Holy Diver’ was alright. Other than that, I struggle. We have a problem then, in that London quintet Mia Hope are a fair bit worse than the above bands.

No matter how bad it gets, most of the terrible music in the world has some redeeming feature. ‘You’re Beautiful’ gave rise to the best piece of rhyming slang ever associated with popular music. ‘Trapped in the Closet’ was pretty much the funniest thing to happen in the noughties. Beyond one hilarious song title (‘Eating Out Pandora’s Box’), We Are Just Satellites has no such saving grace.

It’s not that Mia Hope are talentless. These songs, performed live, have the potential to be decent (particularly if the audience were off their collective tits). On record, however, any power that might be found in the tunes is missing, sterilised by production that doesn’t enhance the band’s few qualities. What’s left is a collection of tracks that sound like WWF theme songs from the late nineties.

‘Glass Building With Amazing Lights’ has some well-worked guitars - sort of Dragonforce Lite - and the rhythm section is suitably aggressive, but these positives fail to compensate for the glaring faults here. On several occasions, e.g. the woeful ‘Now’s Not a Good Time’, the band commit one of the cardinal sins of guitar-based music: total abandon of any concept of melody.

Not this reviewer’s cup of tea, then, but probably not anyone else’s either. (2)