If you were to ask me how many British bands I have reviewed releases from this year, I would not be able to give you an answer, as there are too many to list and I have liked pretty much most of them, and the more British bands I discover that are good, the more proud I am to be British myself. The next British band for me to check out in this review is called INHERIT THE STARS, who are a quintet that hails from Sheffield, and today (December 8^th), they release their new EP "Beyond the Beacons" and that shall be the focus of this review.

The band formed only two years ago in 2012 and last year they released their debut album called "We Were Made to Walk the Skies", and this year they've come back with a new 5 track EP called "Beyond the Beacons", and the question is, will this be added to the list of good British albums I have released this year, or will this go straight to the bin on my hard drive never to be heard again? Let us find out shall we?

Upon first listens, this is just like a lot of the British albums I have released this year as it's full of heavy guitars, dirty bass riffs and pounding drums. The lyrical themes seem to be based around the band's name, which was inspired by their fascination of space, and indeed, the world we live in, which translates into their music.

You get a taster of that on the EP's opening song, "Stay Alive", and it does sound very powerful and you can clearly pick up those influences with the lyrics and the melodies. If there's one thing I'm not too keen on, is the occasional scream here and there, which is also present on all of the EP's songs, but fortunately there's not that much of it on this song, which is just as well because the vocal performance from the singer is very good.

This excellence continues onto the next song, "Flaws", which sounds very mystical and has a few spacey style synth sounds, which I think is a nice touch, as it adds a bit of extra pizzazz to the band's unique sound. The next song, "Exit Plan", is more of a straight up, in your face heavy rocker, which is exactly how I like my Rock music and this meets that criteria.

The second to last song, "Better Than This", is the only song on the EP which I find a bit strange in a couple of places. For the most part, it's Rock and Roll, but there's a couple of bits which sound more like Electronica music then Rock music and that's what confuses me, as it's clear this song is undecided on what genre it wants to be, but after listening to it a couple of times, it's clear it wants to be a Rock track, which it does achieve, as it's mostly Rock music you hear, which is good.

The last song, "On Our Own", is the only slow-ish track on this EP but it does still know how to pack a punch and sound like a powerful closing number, which it manages to do quite well, might I add.

Verdict time now. This is an EP which I am going to add to my list of good British releases I have heard this year but I will knock off a couple of points for the screamo parts of this EP's music, and although it's not something I'm all that keen on, it's not really present that much and it's not over the top screams, so it does get away with that and eventually you get used to it and soon it doesn't really become that much of an issue. The reason it doesn't is because for the most part, this is straight up good British Rock music and overall, I enjoyed listening to it and would recommend to anyone who likes British Rock.<