There are a number of things which immediately put me off this band.
1) The front cover is such a shoddy, dark photocopy that you can’t actually make out the band’s name, always a folly when you’re sending in a CD for review.
2) There’s no myspace or website link on the art, so I have no idea where this band are from, how old they are or anything else of that sort.
3) Within 10 seconds of this EP starting you very, very quickly realise it’s TOO QUIET! Whoever recorded and mixed this quite clearly forgot to turn the amps up to 11 because this is quieter than a church mouse.
With those three issues cast aside, Downhill aren’t that bad. The lack of volumne is a pertinent issue for me, so it makes listening to ‘Always on the Run’ and ‘Beach Party’ very difficult, but what you can hear isn’t too bad. It’s pretty much pop-punk by numbers, the second track is very catchy and it’s ‘beach party’ refrain isn’t going to win an Ivor Novello anytime soon. But they do what they do pretty well, it’s just you have to strain really hard to hear it and that’s not going to encourage anyone to check Downhill out.