From The Top Floor is the debut EP from Brighton, UK-based artist Pink Films. The project is the musical child of Adam Hailstone and the two years he spent writing these songs. Composed of 4 songs, an intro track, and a small interlude, the album lies somewhere on the spectrum between Indie/Alt Rock and Classic Rock. The album got its name as Adam was staying in the top floor flat above two other flats below him, and it was entirely recorded in his bedroom. Let’s check it out and see how well it holds up.
The intro has a cool synth and an electronic upbeat drumming pattern which set the mood for what’s about to come. The first full track, “Turquoise”, has all the elements you need from a good Alt Rock song. The summer vibes that the clean guitar gives, the rich bassline, and Adam’s soothing baritone voice make this a great track to listen to while kicking back and relaxing by the beach. The following track, “Cherry Strands”, is a little slower and has a very cool-sounding falsetto vocal line in its pre-chorus. The chorus shows a delayed drum fill that begins just when the chorus is about to finish. There is a surprising groovy part near the end that made me headbang, and is a very beautiful contradiction to the song’s overall soft vocals. The fourth track, “1965”, is an interlude with a piano and synths that are very reminiscent of 80s pop-rock. The fifth track, “M.A.D (Movie’s Almost Done)”, has a very poppy electronic drumbeat and more head voice/falsetto vocal lines, but the guitar and bass lines are so beautifully intertwined that you’ll wonder how such an arrangement works without real drums. The last song, “A Trip To Paris”, brings those 80s vibes once again with its dancy beat and keyboard lines. The lyrics of this song discuss being true to oneself and living the way we really want to, and I just love how such emotions can be conveyed in an upbeat and energetic track.
To think that this album took 2 years to be written and recorded in the bedroom of the top-floor apartment of Adam Hailstone would point you in the direction of thinking this would be a collection of some indie boyish singer-songwriter pop rock tracks. But to everybody’s surprise, this album succeeds in the mission it had: to convey strong emotions and heavy subject matter in energetic and uplifting songs. This track shows so much potential considering it’s a debut release, and I can tell full-length records and live shows from Pink Films are gonna be larger than life and garner mainstream appeal and success.