This is a review of "Untitled" recorded by Flipside. The review was written by James Stringer in 2003.

Flipside's demo spins around in the CD player, while a huge cringe appears on my face. Three tracks, three power ballads. Predictable chord sequences, simplistic vocals and that string setting on your dad's keyboard that'd "sound great when we get to the chorus".

'Deep Inside' opens the CD and, even though it is cringe worthy, is as tight as it is repetitive. Not appearing to get anywhere, the swap between the two sections never really inspires and, although the musical ability is obviously there, the skip button looks so tempting. 'Black tide' is a showcase of the vocalist's talents and actually has quite an impressive voice, but the guitar lines are too similar to the first track and the piano playing is very wooden and doesn't add a great deal to the song. What is worrying is that the songs are instantly forgettable and don't have much of a hook or progression through the song.

'Dreamland' is the closing track and is indeed dreamy, a slower tempo than the previous tracks and some quite nice ambient lead guitar lines. The chord progression in the rhythm guitar, however, you would have heard about 100 times before Flipside were even conceived. What they do isn't at all new, although they do actually do it well, but they're not interesting - there's really nothing about these songs that makes you want to see them live. The songs seem to fade away without doing anything particularly exciting.

If Flipside are to progress they need to have a look at what they're actually trying to do. Is there a market for this sort of music? And if so will theirs stand up against other bands? At the moment, I'm doubtful.