And what a vocal it is. Mckee’s songwriting instinct here is sharp \u2014 he takes an anecdote as unglamorous as a gym-floor overheard conversation and spins it into something genuinely biting about the state of modern courtship. The lyric doesn’t moralise so much as observe, letting the absurdity of wealth-flexing and status-chasing speak for itself, and the chorus \u2014 which the band rightly seem proud of \u2014 arrives with a melodic lift that’s been earned rather than bolted on. It’s a hook built for radio without once sounding like it was designed by committee.<\/p>
Credit, too, to Simon Moro’s production. Recorded at The Avenue in Cheltenham, the mix has a lived-in warmth to it \u2014 nothing overly polished, nothing scrubbed of personality. Moro clearly understood the song’s emotional register and mixed accordingly: the guitars have grit where grit is needed, the low end has weight without becoming sludgy, and the vocal sits front and centre, exactly where a chorus this strong deserves to be.<\/span><\/p> What ultimately makes “Demand Perfection” work is its lack of pretension. This isn’t a band straining for importance; it’s four musicians who found a genuinely good pop-rock song hiding inside a gym-floor anecdote and had the sense to get out of its way. The chorus does the heavy lifting, the rhythm section does the rest, and Mckee’s lyric adds just enough wit to keep repeat listens interesting. On the strength of this single alone, the festival slots being lined up across the UK and Europe look like a sensible bet rather than an ambitious one. Reetoxa sound, on this evidence, like a band who know precisely what they’re for.<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n\n
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