The Fore

The Fore : Album 'Run and Hide'

They come from London and Liverpool, joining together to make a sound so exciting that thousands of fans throughout Britain, Europe, Canada, South America, Australia and the United States are flocking to CD Baby, Indiestore, Amazon and other outlets for this indie CD.

Run and Hide — the second album by the megapop band The Fore — is a mixture of raw, driving rock-and-roll sprinkled with some of the most beautiful ballads in the musical universe!

Where their debut album Black and White, took us to a world of pure rock excitement, this one explores that world with a musical progression tha’s gonna put your entire system into overdrive! And, through it all, you’ve still got the inimitable style that the band is famous fore!

TRACKLIST FROM RUN AND HIDE (with notes)

FORGIVE AND FORGET — This upbeat rocker has a vocal hook that I dare ya to try and get outta yer head!
WE WERE MEANT TO BE — Like your music flavored with a bit of the Motown dance sound of the early ’60s? You’ve got it, mixed with some solid, Bo Diddley-style rock in the bridge.
HAVE ME BACK AGAIN — A solid mover with the lads’ signature harmony sprinkled liberally throughout!
SEND MY LOVE TO YOU — Sung by drummer Simon Thompson, this folk-rocker is already a fave among some of our servicemen overseas! Great arrangement and strong acoustic rhythm adds to the beauty of this ballad.
YOU’VE GOT TO CHOOSE — Sometimes, if a guy’s got a rival for his girl’s heart, he’s gotta confront her about the situation; that’s what this song’s all about. A strong piano helps build this melodic mover (and wait’ll ya hear the chorus!).
RUN AND HIDE — This thriller starts with a sharp attack and pointed lyrics, warning the cheating girl to run and hide. The bridge builds tremendous suspense, as does the last of the track (with Si and Matt creating a dark, chase-type backing that would sound great on a spy flick!
RUMOURS AND LIES — It’s every teenaged boy’s plea to his girl: Don’t listen to the rumours and lies that might “take your love away”. This slower number has a great calypso-style rhythm and lyrics that aim straight for the heart.
THAT’S A LIE — Imagine the ultimate rock song, with Everly-style harmony, rockabilly-style guitar, great progressive arrangement and upbeat tempo. That’s whatcha got here! (Oh, yeah … there’s a hook in the chorus that’s innovative: As Matt and Spencer sing “then I’ll put you down”, the tempo slows in sync with the words — then builds back up at the words “I’m tellin’ you now”.)
IT’S YOU GIRL — Merseybeat at its finest! Fantastic harmony with a great guitar bridge!
LAZY DAY — A breezy, summertime song with a great hook and warm, inventive vocals. Again, a strong piano only adds to a song that’s as refreshing as iced tea on a hot July day!
LEAVE ME ALONE — Have you ever had someone break up with you, just to find them calling or trying to get you back? That’s the premise of this song. In the chorus, you can feel Spencer confronting his ex while feeling the heartache of having to speak with her again.
NO OTHER LOVE — A slower, heartfelt, harmonic melody with minimal instruments and great lyrics.
TELL YOUR FRIEND — A throwback to the Invasion band’s Hamburg/Star Club days, this is an amazing, raw, in-your-face rocker, with the Chuck Berry 4/4 rhythm, clappers and all! And wait’ll you hear Matt’s guitar solo!
EMMA — It starts darkly with a quasi-flamenco beat, and when Spencer gets to the mic and starts singing to “Emma” about her leaving, you can actually feel his pain! Coupled with Si’s drum fill and Matt’s stirring acoustic 12-string, it’s one amazing song!!
AIN’T THAT JUST FINE — An upbeat song built strongly around the rhythm, it deals with the singer’s happy-go-lucky independence. Lyrics like, “Don’t walk like a rich man, but I got all that I need” and “I’m not the kind of guy to settle down” flavour a tune that’s great to have in yer car’s CD player as you’re hittin’ the open road!

All told, I’ve gotta give this CD an EAGLE-SIZED, five-star “thumbs up” rating! Now, I’ve been in the biz for over 30 years, and this album, while released independently, is one of the best I’ve heard in years! If I were you, I’d order “Run and Hide” today, and start rockin’ with some serious inner energy tomorrow!!

One more word: Though this album’s only been out for about a month, it’s already gettin’ some great airplay across terra firma, and CDs/tracks are selling at a fantastic rate … and it’s all due to the band, their managers, and their team promoting them; no A&Rs, no high-end record labels or fancy ads!

And if that doesn’t tell ya how good the CD is, nothing will!

Music Bender.com - Music Bender

This is fantastic - The Fore sound like they haven't listened to any records except for a scant collection of pre-65 Beatles and Rolling Stones 45s. They're so carefully studied in the sound and style of the Brit Invasion that it's hard to believe that this isn't some long lost recording discovered bricked in to the back wall of the Cavern. Each of the three songs on this demo, none of which come in at longer than two and a half minutes, seems to display a different aspect of The Fore's obsessive reverence of a particular sound. 'In So Deep' is cheeky, jangly pop with melodies picked out over snappy arpeggios; 'Love For Sale' is a slightly slower, more reflective-sounding song with a Beatles-all-over bright guitar line driving it along; and 'We Were Meant To Be' goes in a more Stonesy direction, with stabs of guitar and jittery rhythms holding together some snarling, garagey vocals.
- Diskant

If you were listening to the Kinks, Small faces or the Beatles, and a Fore demo dropped in to your play list you wouldn't notice the huge generation gap. The Fore have bought a time machine and travelled from the 60's to the twenty first century to bring the true sounds of that past generation back to you. The Fore are not a tribute band by any means, yet they have captured the essence of the 60’s music scene and made it there own. The Fore from Kent fitted right in at Catch November 2006 with their slick, catchy, 60's influenced songs. They are without doubt the sound that Indiesexual grew up on. If you missed them at Catch, then you gotta see them live to believe it's actually them performing and not lip sinking over a 1960’s record!

- Broccoli Music

It's not often a band comes by, checkin' The Beatles as an influence... pre-Revolver. Yup. The twang and shake of Merseybeat is seldom heard through any kind of airwave, which is why The Fore are such a cracking band.

Close harmonies, R 'n' B chords and Hank guitar (hell, they might even have the dance routines too) roll out in a very convincing sound, very close to the style of '63. They've obviously spent time in front of the mirror, but an even longer period makin' sure that the sounds are just so.

Of course, songs about girls with a surfy twang could pass as innocent Garage, which is no bad thing. This band, in short, are great and would liven up a party that's sagging in the middle. You need this band in your life. - Electric Roulette Review

The Fore : Black and White (Beatnik Geek, 2007)
Add the sparkling Fore to the growing list of current bands reveling, with a fountain of buoyant flourish, in the sheer joy of the Merseybeat era. The Fore's smashing first album, fourteen period-hardy slices of one, two, three, four, in-your-face pop 'n' roll, is an instant classic.

Close your eyes and let these boys transport you back to that shining period in British pop music, when sweat poured off the Cavern walls in the service of high-energy, emotional rock and roll that inhabited the public consciousness like nothing before. The Fore is the real deal--young men slinging Rickenbackers, Gibsons and Epiphones and wacking the hell out of a Ludwig Black Oyster Pearl kit, making glorious, gorgeous noise for you and me and the guy next door.

All amped up with every place to go, the Fore blows through with highly-charged, electric songs like the fabulous "Little Louisa," which is so strong it could power Las Vegas during a heatwave. Drummer Simon Thompson pounds the skins with verve. Thompson leads the charge with a toms assault on the lively "Someone New." And on "A Girl Like You," the band kicks out the jams with a spirited nod to Goffin and King's "Chains" and carries through with classic pop styling. Throughout these ace songs, bassist Spencer Hannabuss, lead guitarist Matt Hardy, drummer Thompson and rhythm guitarist Luke Bentley make their instruments sing like Merseybeat songbirds (all four of the boys warble, by the way).

This is top-notch Merseybeat-styled pop 'n' roll straight out of the later 2000s, lovingly informed by the sounds of the Beatles, the Searchers, the Hollies, the Shadows and countless other Merseybeat bands. Take a well-deserved simultaneous, Fabs-styled bow, boys. The rest of you, take the Fore home.
- BUHDGE : Melodic Pop Culture Since 2004

Noel Gallagher has made a whole career taking influence from the Beatles middle period. But Strawberry Fields doesn't have to be forever. The FAB 4 did do stuff before 1966 you know.... and it's a rich seam of influence that permeates through the current indie scene... but no one is doing it quite so up-front as The Fore.

Forget new-wave..... Beatnik Geek could be the next big thing.

Love For Sale is drenched in Merseybeat and makes you think that you've heard it somewhere before...and you kind of have... but that's a very good thing.

- Radio Caroline TV

The Fore wear their influences firmly on their sleeves with absolutely no apologies - and that's what makes them so good.

Play track one "Love for Sale" and you immediately know that you are destined for a roller-coaster ride through the early and mid 60s. Indeed the band make their influences so obvious that it's almost like trying to identify where you've heard the songs before and then realising that they are in fact beautifully crafted sub three minute pieces written by the band themselves.

This is Merseybeat craftily updated to the 21st Century with only improved production to set them apart from the original sound. If these guys could climb aboard a time machine and drift back to the early sixties they would be in the same league as the Searchers and the Merseybeats. But of course there's been so much pop/rock water under the bridge since then. So how relevant are they to the first decade of the 21st Century?

Well the answer is simply as relevant as you want them to be. This is a thoroughly enjoyable album. You don't have to think too deeply about it - just accept it for what it is, a romp through the early days of pop with reference to virtually everybody from the Beatles downwards.

So often bands are labelled as the new Beatles or the new Beach Boys. That kind of thing gets mighty tedious, but this is one album that has genuinely and deliberately caught the feel of almost 50 years ago.

I have already mentioned Love for Sale. Listen to it and you immediately think of "Ticket to Ride" or "Then he Kissed me" by the Crystals or The Searchers "When You Walk in the Room." Along with the beat numbers and ballads come more bluesy material like "Little Louisa" which is a throwback to "Boney Maroney." Band members must have immersed themselves in the culture and sounds of the sixties to have so successfully reproduced the feel of that bygone age. I bet the Fore go down a storm live. If they mixed up lesser known sixties cover versions with their original material you would be hard put to tell the difference. Overall a well crafted album from a time long since lost.

- Peter Steward

Listeners, let's go back, way back to those thrilling days of Beatlemania... The Fore are a group that sticks to the Beatles tribute formula to come up with original tunes, done in the Fab style circa 1964. Hey it worked for the Spongetones and several other bands, so another is not going to hurt. In fact it makes it tougher for them, because we judge them based on the Merseybeat template and how well they bend it.

Lead by Spencer John Hannabuss (bass) and Matt Hardy (lead), the recreation is near flawless - in two minute power pop gems, like the opener "Love for Sale" with it's "Ticket To Ride" guitar riff and smooth three part harmonies. After hearing "A Girl Like You", you'll swear this is a Beatles single that was lost in time. The group then breaks out into some skiffle and blues in "Little Louisa" and "If I Show You Love" echos "This Boy" quite nicely. If you miss the old Mersey sound, then The Fore fit the bill perfectly. The songs are well written and not just stolen riffs - “You’ll Be Mine“ is a swinging, screaming jangley slice of sweetness. Later on a few songs resemble The Searchers, and Gerry and The Pacemakers. It's not the most original way to make power pop, but it sure sounds great. Soak in this nostalgic guilty pleasure with your early Spongetones and the Mop Tops. A real gem to be treasured here.

8/10
- Review in PowerPopaholic