EP Review: Balancing Act - 'Tightropes and Limericks'
London-based, Mancunian-flavoured quartet Balancing Act have just released their new EP ‘Tightropes and Limericks’, in the midst of their largest UK tour to date, and it really couldn’t be better.
Having only entered the scene back in 2022, it would be fair to say that the band’s understated brilliance has so far fallen a little under the radar. They’ve had some fantastic opportunities, sure — a main stage slot at this year’s Truck festival and a stint support IDKHOW BUT THEY FOUND ME on their recent UK/EU tour come to mind — but they still don’t feel like enough when compared to the sheer breadth of the band’s sonic blends of alt indie rock. Tracks alternate between blissfully flesh and wistfully nostalgic; eras and styles seem to circle each other endlessly until you can’t tell where one stops and the other ends… and yet, somehow, whether it’s through Kai Jon Roberts’ old-Alex Turner-coded vocals, Jackson Couzens’ all-encompassing guitar, or some flawless blend of all of the above, it’s all distinctly theirs. The difference between 2023’s seductive and insidious ‘Cheshire Smile’, or the almost Reverend And The Makers-esque debut single ‘Cold’, when compared to any of the band’s five new offerings — bar perhaps the menacing, trip-hop inspired ‘Under The Table’ — couldn’t be starker; despite this, though, anyone who’s given the band more than a cursory listen would still instinctively recognise their shared origins.
And nowhere is this more obvious in the glorious slice of indie-microcosm that is the afore-mentioned ‘Tightropes and Limericks’. There’s the quirky and catchy opener ‘She Plays The Theremin’, a slowly simmering indie standout that somehow manages to feature both a theremin and a cowbell — a feat few others can claim. There’s the breezier, almost raw ‘Laylow’, quickly building from light crooning to impassioned shouts, followed immediately by the breathy, almost laboured distortion of ‘Under The Table’. There’s the guitar squealing of ‘Ballad Of A Lonely Man’, Kai’s cries boiling over into frustrated screams that fade into the ether; there’s ‘AWOL’, it’s serpentine guitar and emotional lyrics undoubtedly and unsurprisingly quickly becoming a live favourite. Simply put, each track seems to embody one of myriad sounds that other bands might base their entire discographies around, and yet for Balancing Act just become another style to cross off; each is a song that would handily be a stand-out for any other band, yet for Balancing Act seem to just remain as par for the course.
A truly fantastic EP, and hopefully the start of the band’s meteoric rise to the top.
Words by James O’Sullivan
