Operahouse - Escape From the Sun

Operahouse are an ambitious bunch, as big and expensive-sounding as their moniker suggests. Their ambition doesn’t stop at frontman Jonny’s desire to be considered a peer of Thom Yorke and David Bowie, or the a-Muse-ing way each and every song here builds into a massive chorus that makes up in bombastic hooks what it lacks in subtlety. It extends to the lyrics, which they hope will “set us apart from all these depressing bands singing about recession”, not to mention the emptiness of “she’s so loverlee” type “shitty indie-pop” platitudes. So they deliver fantasy-fuelled science fiction tales of rockets from the sun, love interrupted by alien abduction and a man who freezes himself over girl trouble and wakes up to witness the apocalypse. It makes a change, but musically they’re not yet quite so imaginative, sounding more Rialto than Pink Floyd. But dramatic and geeky? Matt Bellamy best watch his back.