Bancroft The Melophobic Solution. Release Date : November 1, 2005. Label: Dope Radio. Rating: Average. (Screw points. To each his own!) Man I don't know if I'm just in a bad mood today or what, but I'm giving an unfair preview to Bancroft before even hearing the record. Reason being, their song titles all sound bland, unimaginative, typical, easy subject matter for rock music ("Hollow Perfect Body" and American Psycho" for example) and the album art is all manner of fuzzy, orange, available-lit studio photos, interspersed with a couple flash-lit photos of the same and some live club shots. But in the interest of not being hasty and appearances being deceiving, let's give this a whirl. well, so far so good. And by that I mean, I was pretty on the money. It's not the mega-dull outing I thought it would be. In fact, it's quite chipper. The levels are all up to snuff, the instruments are in key and the music sounds neither forced nor held back. But, it's nothign but a bunch of easy-to-manipulate chords and melodies, a couple pedals... nothing extraordinary (even though they have a song with that very name). This strikes me as an eternal bar band. It's sufficiently rocky to bring the locals out in happy droves - probably a local favourite even - but destined to stay in the bars forever, playing to weekend warriors who are there to get ragingly drunk, dance like fuck, and be a bit obnoxious, knock some glasses over, that sort of thing. The sort of band popular with people in a transition period, you know, they finished college, they're into their careers, maybe starting a family. It's the band women go to see on a Friday night when they want to let thier hair down and forget they're moms for a while. It's the band men go to see to impress those women with their Harley's and their pool-playing and beer-drinking abilities. Song of choice : "So Long" is all right. -Andy Scheffler Elsewhere Bancroft website Published : January, 2007.