I wouldn’t say that Harry and I have our musical differences, when we met at Uni we both had a love for rock / metal music. My Deep Purple obsession, joined with Harry’s love of Iron Maiden enabled us to share many a lunchtime pouring over Kerrang and wondering what ‘Tommy Bolin was up to these days’ – a head shaking phrase for a Deep Purple fanatic that Harry has never made me forget. However, reading the music that Harry and I seem to enjoy on the Grumpyrocker site, you’d be forgiven for thinking that music was the last thing to which we had a shared history.

To be fair Harry would not wax lyrical over the likes of Mike Marlin or Aaron Wright, but then again you wouldn’t find any Insomnium on my iPod. However, on this occasion I’d like to think that there is some musical synergy in our thought processes.

This is Freedom are a four lads [between the press release and the photo accompanying this article, This is Freedom are now one member down] from High Wycombe who have been compared to contemporaries such as You Me At Six and Panic! At The Disco and musically they seem comfortable in that pop rock mould. Their EP Welcome Home boasts five well polished tracks and that’s ultimately my problem with This is Freedom. Welcome Home sounds like a band who could well be on the front cover of Kerrang, but that says more about where Kerrang now sits as the doyen of rock / metal music.

You can’t blame This is Freedom as this is probably exactly the sort of music that its target audience are waiting for and it’s a target audience who appreciate the talents of their contemporaries named in the previous paragraph. For the rest of us, old enough and grumpy enough to want more from their rock / metal music, This is Freedom do not come even close enough to satisfying the desire to return to those edgier days if we ever left them behind.

The people who go and see This is Freedom live, will no doubt have a good time, will find themselves bouncing along to Bitter whilst chanting “you can be so, you can be so bitter”, but for me they just do not generate any enthusiasm and you’re more likely to find Harry and I sat in the corner bemoaning the future of rock / metal music the day This is Freedom feature on the cover of Kerrang.

Reviewed by Jimbo Walsh.

This is Freedom's EP Welcome Home is available now to download from Amazon.