The Peach Tree - Hold On

Hear The Track Here

Ever since I first encountered Australia's The Peach Tree about a year or so ago, he has kept me both amused and irritated in equal measure. If I hadn't had a few tracks exposure to what this musician is actually capable of, I would have probably dismissed Hold On as disorganised demo material and left it at that. Would have meant a damn short review though, so thank God for small mercies eh? Nonetheless, one of the accusations I leveled at this musician a time or two is lack of attention to musics basic rules, OK if you are experimenting electronically (just) but a big no no when tackling more mainstream genres.

So let me get this out of the way at the start, The Peach Tree is not a drummer.

While that factor considerably drags the track towards the disorganised, demo feel - and may be hard to get over for some people - this is a track with some depth. Like a lot of this musicians work, it pays to look a bit deeper. Essentially what Hold On is, is an idea (or even two). For me, its those ideas that save this track from death by a thousand cuts. Hold On is a song, not something I expected from this quarter and a pretty good one at that. The first part of the track is a slow, almost reggae/britpop thing (if you can imagine that) before its definitely staggers into the main part of the song, a considerably rockier affair.

In some ways, I think this track would have been better served by having a basic, simple kick/snare drum pattern because the disjointed (and out of time) efforts from toms and hi-hat definitely detract from where the song should be. This is particularly noticeable in the heavy metal-ish section around four minutes in where the hit hats are and toms do exactly what they are supposed to (almost). I came away from the track wishing that it would settle on where it actually wanted to go and at almost six and three quarter minutes could have definitely lost a bit of weight and not suffered for it. Strange mix of styles, rough as a bears butt but it has something...

I didn't want to bite it at least.