We Are Losers - Sunset Song/Cheerleader

Sunset Girl/Cheerleader is the first double A sided single from Irish newcomers We Are Losers. Beginning as a bedroom project of frontman Gavin Elsted, it quickly grew into a fully fledged band with the additions of Stephen Conlan, Gary Clarke and mutual friend Bronwyn Murphy-White to create a live band who has since gained over two thousand plays of their free EP stemmed from supporting Native Tongues and The Phantom Band. The hype continued to grow as Cheerleader (the second A side to appear on this single) was listed seventh in the most blogged about songs on blog aggregator The Hype Machine.

The quartet are gearing themselves up for their first festival season with the release of Sunset Girl/Cheerleader, on UK independent record label Dance To The Music.

Sunset Girl is the first A side to begin the single, and features slight elements of Wavves and Best Coast in its sound of reverb mixed with simple guitar riffs with a slight hint of low-fi on top. But unlike the two California-based surf-rock bands, We Are Losers are able to make as much noise and impact as possible. The instrumentation is loud and catchy, the drums in particular drive the track into the next gear, and the vocals from Elsted are mixed with a good balance between being high enough to be heard, and not too far from the music. The vocals cap off an accessible song that could easily reach the radio stations, and even reach out to the vast audiences the band will play during festival season.

Cheerleader follows in similar fashion. It retains all of the fun and energy that Sunset Song has, while projecting its own sound. The instrumentation is arguably not as accessible, but it does appear to sound a lot more dense, the layers of backing vocals lathered against Elsted’s provides a quality that the audience NEED to sing along. The lyrics seem to depict the usual unlucky in love topic but the chorus and upbeat chords provide a nice spin to it.

Sunset Song/Cheerleader is a strong debut single from We Are Losers. Both tracks are full of great hooks that are performed and executed well, there’s no doubt that the band will be able to get the majority of their festival crowd’s dancing along to their beachy sound, while the rest will probably be too busy chanting along to the choruses. Definitely a band to look out for in the future.

8/10