Both Osian and Meilyr share the vocal duties in the band, with the former playing bass (รก la Robin Hawkins of The Automatic) quite remarkable considering he's actually self-taught, and that some of the bass riffs in both their songs are pretty complex. Both Osian and Meilyr wrote Move On together, and for a first song, it's mightily impressive. Meilyr is more the lead singer of the band (he takes main duties in their second song, Silver Lining) and strums his guitar (generally the rhythm), and sings each song to a very impressive standard, also playing pretty excellently. Dylan Ebbsworth, the final member, is their drummer, and having been to school with all three of them, Dylan's drumming skills are nothing short of incredible, definitely the best drummer I've seen with my own eyes (aside from, possibly, Biffy Clyro drummer Ben Johnston, after seeing them live last November). The already mentioned Steffan Davis is the band's lead guitarist, who evidently helped write Silver Lining, given during the pre-lyric phase, it was called, in short, Steff's Riff, and it is a pretty excellent riff.
Of the band's two songs, Move On and Silver Lining, the latter is definitely my preferred track, but I'll get to that a bit later. The acoustic vibe from Move On is wonderful. The song itself (lyrically) is pretty conventional in today's market. A story of a lost love but the chorus brings a happier tone, as the songs protagonist has, indeed, moved on from this mystery girl (I gotta move on, move on from you/I gotta move on to something new), perhaps saying that this girl was simply a stepping stone towards greater things, that now he's had this experience, he can find exactly what he's looking for, i.e. someone to understand this song. Considering this is the first song, the production value is pretty good, although if I'm honest the guitar seems a bit on the quiet side, which is a slight shame because the riff is one that is quite easily picked up, and very easy to strum along peacefully to. The shared duties on this one are great, both of them holding their own, giving the band some options as both of whom do have very good singing voices. Plus, playing an instrument and singing at the same time is A LOT harder than it looks, so I have to applaud the two of them for that one. I do have a very small gripe about this one, mind, it's that Dylan and Steff's playing is reduced quite substantially, although this is most definitely made up for with their next song, Silver Lining.
Silver Lining is, truthfully, a fantastic song. There's no doubt about it, it's a brilliantly catchy tune (especially the chorus) that should surely increase their continuously growing fan base. Silver Lining seems almost professionally produced, the previous issues with slightly too quiet guitars, for example, has been rectified greatly, giving both Steff (Steff given an incredibly good solo in this one) and Dylan more chances to shine (the drum beat is far more complex in all areas of the song) alongside the already established Meilyr and Osian (Osian sticking to backing vocals in the chorus). It's a much snappier song too, much faster paced, and nearly a minute shorter than Move On, this is definitely a, as Max Rushden of Soccer AM fame would say, a TT - toe tapper! I'm even sitting here right now, the song maybe playing for the fourth or fifth time, I find myself singing along to the chorus, given its nature, it's definitely a sing-a-long, that should surely be a favourite among their live performances. Something that I've quite literally just learnt, is that they only wrote Silver Lining for the Battle of the Bands competition, as a sort of stepping stone to do so. They should be entered into competitions like this more often, if they belt out songs of this standard given a bit of encouragement.
To my knowledge, Tapas Tuesday have performed live three times, I've seen them twice back in our hometown, but their most recent performance took place all the way up in Bangor, North Wales, where Meilyr, Osian and Dylan are at Bangor University, where they competed live on Storm FM in a battle of the bands competition - and won! I couldn't hear the actual performance sadly as for some reason the Internet in my University (Nottingham) doesn't like you listening to the radio! Thankfully, their performance of a Mumford & Sons medley (on ukulele!) is pretty excellent, which I'm hoping they'll properly record and release on to their MySpace, and shows their diversity from the harder, upbeat Silver Lining, to the very mellow and excellent medley they performed.
In summary, Tapas Tuesday are a little known but growing band from Pontypridd, with a couple of impressive tracks under their belts, should, with a bit of luck, go on to much bigger things.
Their MySpace
Their Mumford & Sons medley
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