In The City Demo Round-Up : Exclusive Feature

It has to be the most commonly heard white lie that reverberates around In The City every year of its sixteen thus far. “Yes, I promise I’ll listen to your demo.”

Year upon year of returning with carrier bags full of bands’ hopes, dreams and endeavours and that indiscernible sinking feeling when you realise that it’ll take beyond Christmas to go through them all, this year, I decided it was going to be different.

Piles of Hit, Miss and Maybes scattered across the floor

So around a month later, having ploughed through nearly a hundred demos, here with a resume on the official ITC unsigned album and my personal top twenty. Kindly bear in mind that the selection is entirely predicated on my personal prejudices and like all music journalism is completely subjective. I would hate for anyone to be discouraged by a lack of inclusion here as there were many good acts who missed the cut for a variety of reasons, a lot of it to do with my personal tastes.

Anyway, so over the last few weeks my palatial riverside apartment has resembled a type of Juke Box Jury demo style. Piles of Hit, Miss and Maybe across the floor and as you’d have to be a right miserable git to put the boot in on any band at ITC, only the ones which I’d heartily recommend appear here.

The rules of engagement. All demos were CD’s that came my way at In The City and I went through every single one. To be reviewed, it had to be a physical CD since I decided that just emailing mp3’s didn’t really cut it. The only exception to this is the official In The City Unsigned album which nowadays only comes via ITunes.

Anyway, so it goes, twenty one reviews back to back, enough to stretch anyone’s linguistic dexterity. No-one can accuse me of not putting the graft in here. Been a bloody marathon this, suppose that’s what you get for keeping your promises.