This is a review of "Untitled" recorded by Spoonfish. The review was written by Sam Saunders in 2001.

Spoonfish. Hmm. Interesting name. It's good. This Keighley four-piece band are definite contenders. They play energetic enthusiastic metal in a classic style (but claim to be NU). A little bit of acoustic and lots of power chord chugging and crashing. There are no heart stopping moments and their kit is on the underpowered side. But given a big stage and amps that go all the way to eleven they'd do the business. The louder I played this the better I liked it.

The CD has nine songs, which is way to many for a demo but a treat for the fans. The band shows what it does in the first, and prove the point with the next eight... "Breaks" is good and lively, and makes a good opening track. Mates and live converts will appreciate the extra tracks keeping the mood going for the full half hour. Good guitar bits crop up in every song and the drumming is steady. The bass hides in the murk at the bottom of the mix and does its foundation job with great assurance.

On the down side, the songs are not fully worked out. The lines have that half shouted quality - the standard thing you do when you've got the rhythm track and the riff, but you can't think of tune. Every so often a note is held for a bar or a bar and a half, sometimes going up, sometimes coming down. Nothing wrong with that - everyone does it and it works. But the breakthrough comes when you get a melodic line. Some better words will be needed too. Spoonfish want to be thoughtful, but they end up being a bit obvious. "Oh, it's a nightmare. If I open mah yies will it still be there?" is typical of the lyric quality in general. There are more vivid way of saying things like "The road is long and yet we'll take you to the end and back. It seems that needlessly we make it harder for ourselves". C'mon Spoonfish, a story, a person, a visual clue - something to make it seem more real and less lumpy.

So on balance, the spirit and the flesh are up their howling for it. But refreshment and some hard work needed on the songs themselves. An advertised web presence yielded the dreaded "404 Not Found" all this week.