Eight Days A Week – Fades to Valentine pink

Going one better: Eight Days A Week, The Fades

“Hold me, love me, I ain’t got nothing but love babe, eight days a week.” So sang The Beatles – and many wedding tribute and Spotify cover bands thereafter.

It is this concept of an all-encompassing, bordering-on-obsessive love that is at the centre of punk rockers The Fades’ similarly titled single, ‘Eight Times A Day’, to be released, fittingly enough, on 14 February.

Of course ‘eight times a day’ probably makes a little more sense than ‘eight days a week’, but let’s not get bogged down by those kinds of details.

The tune is a blustering, jaunty affair, thundering along with a simple, catchy refrain and the same reverential bow to the punk rock bands of the late nineties and early 2000s as the rest of parent album Ragnarok, released in Autumn last year.

In fact it seems that The Fades – who have now been in business for almost a decade – would much rather that period, when bands like Queens Of The Stone Age, Soundgarden and Weezer were at the top of everyone’s Napster playlist, had never come to an end.

No doubt we all feel a little like that, and it is a welcome reminder of the joys of straightforward guitar music, uncomplicated chord progressions and brash in-your-face lyrics with no need for decoding.

One can’t help but feel with The Fades, though, that despite their strong technical skills – evidenced throughout Ragnarok – their output would benefit from a little extra help on the production side.

The release is a double A-side along with ‘Free Little Pill’ – also a love song, but in this case one that is an ode to artificial stimulants. It’s a whispy, floaty affair with more genuine feeling behind it and arguably the better track.

The Fades’ double A-side ‘Eight Days A Week’ is available via Genepool Records from 14 February.