by Chris Hatch

If the events of 2020 hadn’t left you gig-starved enough, then the fizzing indie rock of Norway’s This Daze will leave you pining for some sweaty basement bar, and longing to hear their chest-thumping tunes delivered at ear deafening volume

At just three songs long, their debut EP packs a punch that encompasses the fervent, grungey punk of Cloud Nothings, the youthful, cracked vocals of Cage The Elephant, and the anthemic call-to-arms of Japandroids. While the four piece may be based in Norway, their music sounds like it’s found its way over the Atlantic – floating in on the FM waves of some US college rock station.

With the average song length at less than three minutes, and the whole EP done and dusted in under ten, This Daze’s debut is a breathless and exuberant record that has the scuzz of The Strokes’ early stuff, but with a more righteous attitude – lead singer, Erlend Eggan, sings with his shoulders back, his chin up, and with enough crackle in his voice to make you believe he’s been passionately belting these songs out for a while. But it isn’t just simple, three-chord punk rock – on the opening Want It All, the guitars form a fuzzy, breakneck, wall of sound, while on Fool those same guitars eventually swandive into a woozy, wailing, shoegazey collapse.

Final track, Less About You, is absolutely everything that a young band should be a about. It is unrefined, naive, and too short… and yet you’ll have it on repeat over and over again. This Daze have been together for little more than a year, and Less About You captures the youthful spirit of making music with friends – throwing it all in there and seeing what happens. While there’s a bitterness in Egann’s lyrics, they are delivered with such zest that you can’t help but feel your grin broaden with every repeated play.

This Daze’s debut EP is a record that arrives clad in ripped jeans, clutching a plastic beer glass, and bearing a bleary-eyed smile. It will lift you up on its shoulders and pass you from sweaty body to sweaty body, and joyfully and drunkenly help you crowd surf your way through the winter – transporting you to a happier, more carefree time.

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