The First Cut

Is it pop? The iTunes Store says so. I don't. This mostly unknown band out of Bergen, Norway seems to fall more under the Indie umbrella. They can also be considered emo, as the name suggest. Rather than a reference to self injury, however, the band's name comes from the Sheryll Crow song "The First Cut is the Deepest."

The band has only one major album, "Silence Afterwards," (released in 2006) which is available on iTunes. There are no singles or EPs. Some sources report that the band is on a hiatus and may never play again. Time will tell.

This excerpt from the band's Myspace page (myspace.com/thefirstcut) explains a bit about the band name's history:

The summer of 2003 the vocalist of CRASH got a phonecall from the manager of a finnish pop band called The Crash. He told Arild that Warner Music Finland had taken notice that there was a norwegian band by the same name and that "something terrible could happen". After that day Arild recieved several phone calls from the same finnish number and all he could hear was breathing, the sound of broken bones and an evil laughter.

A day in august 2004 arild got a mandate from God, in the shape of Yusuf Islam, also known as Cat Stevens, to use the name of his broken heart-anthem "The first cut is the deepest": The band was deeply honoured, and have decided to continue under that name.

Overall rating: 4/5

Bottom line: Great music, but the fact that there might only be one cd out is annoying.