THE FRONT ROW

The main raison d’etre of Halfway 2 Nowhere is to bring to your attention new and interesting music that may have slipped the attention of the mainstream media. With Nightshift, the intriguing debut release from Cedar, I think we are hitting our mark.

Formed in 2022 Cedar are Patrick Murphy (lead vocals/rhythm guitar), Harry Meenagh (lead guitar), Bradley Hewett (bass) and Daryl Pallas (drums). Hailing from Gibraltar on the sunny Mediterranean coast, their post-punk indie sound relates more to the murky music scenes of London, Leeds and Manchester. Their cited influences include Cage The Elephant, Foals, and Wolf Alice.

The narrative of Nightshift is fairly simple. The protagonist is working on a nightshift and is not particularly happy with his lot, ‘I want a nine-to-five, I want to feel alive, but I’m on the graveyard shift’ singer Murphy painfully laments.

Sonically, Nightshift is much more complex. It starts with an aural, swirling Pixieslike bombardment, before softening as Murphy’s yearning lyrics come in, ‘Working on a nightshift and I’m wasted’. The song is punctuated with loud/soft changes in emphasis. Pallas and Hewett provide the songs unfussy solid foundations. Meenagh’s lead guitar parts seamlessly drift from searing solos to My Bloody Valentine tinged, pedal-driven shoegaze histrionics. The whole thing is a heady cocktail.

I was lucky enough to see Cedar when they recently supported Liverpool heavy blues-rock outfit The Heavy North at Gibraltar’s Ocean Village Arena. Live they are an exciting, powerful prospect and local followers of the British Overseas Territory’s music scene appear to be in agreement that Cedar are the most exciting band to come out of Gib in years.

Nightshift is available to download and stream from all good music platforms now. A follow-up single Weird is in the pipeline, Cedar have a few more gigs pending in Gibraltar, and there are rumours of some UK dates in the autumn. We’ll keep you up-dated. It’s what we do.

Ian Dunphy