In-Flight Safety

If there’s one thing that In-Flight Safety has been blessed with it’s praise. Emm Gryner has said some very kind things about this New Brunswick band, and they were also hailed as Best Unsigned Band at 2003's North By North East Festival, which helped open up some doors for the band. Naturally all of the buzz led to their debut indie EP getting a major label re-release. There’s a definite level of confidence on Vacation Land that is a little unexpected on a debut recording, but some of that is due in part to the expert mixing skills of Warne Livesey, who has previously worked with Julian Cope and The The. They’ve obviously listened to plenty of Coldplay, Radiohead and, to a lesser extent, Sigur Ros, and that almost prevents the band’s own personality from emanating from their music. But the biggest sin of Vacation Land is that the five songs all sound far too similar. They all have interesting ideas, but they never really come to fruition and the tunes just meander around without the necessary direction to sustain interest. At the end of the day, five songs just isn’t enough to tell exactly what the future holds for In-Flight Safety, but there are enough hints that they might be destined for greater things. Just not quite yet.