Hailing from Southsea but formed over beers in Hamburg, Misgivings make exactly the kind of noise you might expect them to. They trade in a kind of fast and loose punk style while retaining a melodic edge on this, their debut EP Delete History. And while it might start off promising enough, Misgivings are, unfortunately, a band who find themselves making missteps into pitfalls that many other punk bands find themselves guilty of.

The EP kicks off promisingly enough with ‘Century’, an insanely catchy bit of Bad Religion style punk with gruff vocals ripped straight from a Husker Du release. The writing and arrangement of the song has been thoroughly thought out and it quickly builds to a great, clattering conclusion. There are punk bands the world over who would kill to have a song like this in their catalogue.

Next up is the brilliantly titled ‘It’s a Bone, You Lucky Dog’ which after a sweet, melodic guitar intro turns into a pretty standard pop punk tune. Give it a bit of polish in terms of the production and mix and stick a pretty boy singer in there and you might as well be listening to Blink 182 or Taking Back Sunday. These guys know how to write a catchy song, it has to be noted.

From here on in though, the problems emerge. Misgivings are seemingly constricted by their expectations of what a punk band should do that they forget to have any ideas of their own. The songs on Delete History fail to make much impact when each of them sticks so rigidly to formula. It must be stressed that these are in no way bad songs, but surely there’s only so many times you can hear big intro/verse/chorus/verse/chorus/middle 8/chorus before it starts to get dull.

Misgivings are in no way a bad band and they certainly know how to craft a tune. If Delete History demonstrates anything, it is that there are bags of potential on show here, and this band just need to work on finding their own niche. It is a pleasant listen, it does nothing wrong, but will you remember it when it’s over?

3 out of 5 high fives!