About a year or so back, a friend sent me an MP3 of the latest band that had worked him up into a tizz - his previous recommendations had been a bit of a mixed bag, a combination of fairly run of the mill guitar bands with the occasional gem, so I wasn't entirely sure what to expect as the green bar on MSN slowly filled up.

When I was finally able to press play, I was absolutely blown away by the glorious technicolour indie-pyschedelia that emenated from my knackered computer speakers - it sounded like 'She Don't Use Jelly' era Flaming Lips covering Pavement. That song was 'Nexus in a Chain of Thought'.

Now on it's third outing in a re-recorded form (having previously featured on the bands 'Karate Kills' demo EP and a split 7" with The Favours on Filthy Little Angles), it retains the hazy charm that captivated me on the first listen. The bursts of glittery guitar still tickle your synapses with glitter soaked feathers, and Arnold's perculiar high pitched vocals still soar abov your head, looping the loop and leaving a multi-coloured vapour trail before dive bombing your ears.

The new stuff on the b-sides is almost as good - 'Give it a Name' features a guitar line that meanders around the rhythm section like a hamster around one of those complex plastic tubing sets that they seem to enjoy so much, while 'Glances' brings to mind an even more laid back take on Dinosaur Jr's 'Feel the Pain'.

Splendid stuff all round, keep an eye out for the album coming soon.

Review by Paul Madden
www.theikplus.com
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This is ace. Two bands on the fantastically named Leeds label ‘Dance to the Radio’, one song each, and I think the Commies edge it. I’m inclined to say they sound like Bloc Party, which they do, but it seems better than that, less polished, more screamo, less rounded and a storming drum break down halfway through. No wonder Steve Lamacq was pogoing at their London gig recently. This Et Al are a different kettle of fish, my inclinations say like The Killers from Faversham. Woozy, loud guitars, ominous synth clouds, deranged voices, and splendiferous lyrics. “He shoots presidents and she sells insurance”. If the Killers try to sound like the Cure, This Et Al sound like the Cure covering the Killers trying to sound like the Cure. But weirdly enough they’re original with it, and won the chance to play Leeds festival last year. Catch em quick before they fly into the *tsars* (b-boom tss)

Review by Chris Field
www.forwardrussia.com download 'Two' on our downloads page
www.thisetal.com
www.dancetotheradio.com
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The Piskie Sits are Leeds’ (well, Wakefield’s, technically) newest lo-fi pop heroes. Their new EP “50’s Greaser Uniform” is a riot of chiming guitars, oblique Pavement lyricism and fuzzy, half-buried Folk Implosion melodies - all topped off with ragged Superchunk production. (And hand-claps!) Admirably rough-around the edges, this is lo-fi guitar pop layered with a healthy sprinkling of noise.

As the well-worn phrase goes – “it’s not where you’re from, it’s where you’re at” – but, The Piskie Sits proximity to Leeds should ensure that as long as Leeds is “where it’s at”, their defiantly-odd Northern approximation of lo-fi US slacker-pop won’t go unnoticed for much longer. Bring on the major leagues!

Review by Tom Leins
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Canada has the Broken Social Scene, Glasgow has the Reindeer Section and now Brighton has its first supergroup, the Brakes. With members of British Sea Power, Tenderfoot and Electric Soft Parade this is their first release.

All Night Disco Party is a mix of power punk with a great beat. Crossed between a rocking Moby and the Faint, this is a 2 ½ minute blast of frenetic fun. Their debut album out in June has 16 tracks but still comes in at 29 minutes. Could be the soundtrack of the summer. This song definitely will stay on repeat on my stereo.

Review by Sonia Pagliari
brakesbrakesbrakes.com
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What were you thinking? Working all day only to spend your hard-earned on the high school ramblings of some second-rate, pussy-footed, scarf-wearing pansies who just about managed to jerk out something that barely resembles a tune. You’re all sick. The whole bleeding lot of you. And if you think you‘re not, then you should seriously consider a course of intensive shock therapy. Or alternatively go out buy the new Reuben single. That‘s right; this is your medicine, and might just save you from the clutches of Satan‘s commercial monkey spawn. Treatment is even made easy since, somehow, without losing a drop of the blood, sweat and tears dripping from past efforts; Reuben have written something close to a pop tune. Throwing in more vocal hooks than the Beatles at an angling convention Jamie Lenman promises to “shake my ass and move my feet” over a filthy looming bass line, and the best pop-metal riffs Cobain never wrote. A louder, faster and candy-coated Kick In The Mouth; just what the doctor ordered.

Review by James Kirsch
www.wordsfromreuben.com
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Left With Pictures’ charming, low-key EP features 6 jauntily-downbeat songs that had me reaching for the thesaurus in search of new words for ‘fey’…! By the sound of things they’ve listened to more than a few Belle and Sebastian records in their time, but so have I, so who’s counting? They haven’t quite mastered the wonderfully dark spark that typifies B&S’s work, yet, but they’re very close. Glib comparisons aside, Left With Pictures are a great band, and the last two tracks on the EP are particularly good. ‘Do You Want A Piece Of Me?’ yearns for naughty bedsit fun and final track ‘Donovan & The Doors’ is lovely, woozy and withering all at the same time. Lovely stuff. To top it all off, the artwork is similarly excellent. [Illustration/design www.ventedspleen.com ] I look forward to their next release, because it may well be very special indeed.

PS. I only came up with ‘bewitched’ and ‘affected’, so I’m sticking with ‘fey’ personally…

Review by Tom Leins
www.leftwithpictures.co.uk
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Considering that this single was recorded next door to a multi-generational crack den (look at the website, you'll understand), 'Be There' sure is a breezy, summery treat. It's the new single by lo-fi pop newcomers Leon, and like many bands that follow the DIY indie path, their music is built on the (sort of) solid foundations of tinny guitars, home-grown electronics, laconic vocals and more importantly, infectious tunes- 'Be There' flaunts all four of these attributes, especially the last one. Honestly, this song is so catchy (in a non-annoying way) that you'd swear Leon had been studying the indie-pop formula for years striving to attain Blur circa-1993 or Super Furries circa- 1996 perfection, when they probably just knocked it out to drown out the rabid crack Grannies next door. Whatever, it's brilliant.

B-Side 'Prozac Generation' is equally as charming, and there's a remix of 'Be There' thrown in too. This and their forthcoming album 'Uppers and Downers' are released on Leon's own label Freezer Recordings, which is always commendable as it's one in the eye for the major labels. And yes, there is actually a person in the band called Leon (Black, the singer) so your parents won't be confused (like they were by Belle and Sebastian, Franz etc) when these guys inevitably make it big.

Review by Ian Viggars
www.whothehellisleon.com
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C-Jags are great - a breathe of musical fresh air – actually, make that a gob-full of spite and cheekiness… New single ‘Paradise Park’ (b/w ‘Please Please’) is a superb glammed-up slice of spiky urban yob-pop; a saucy, deviant scum-trampling estate-anthem. C-Jags are satellite town pop rebels with a cause. They sound like a particularly nasty strain of Britpop: great lyrics, great melodies, great new-wave guitars. Stars in waiting, without a doubt. If they ever want to stamp Brett Anderson’s cadaverous junkie Britpop corpse into provincial tarmac roads under dirty neon skies I’d be more than happy to join them.

Review by Tom Leins
www.c-jags.com
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Review by Bevis Man
www.indian.co.uk/withoutgravity
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Akira The Don recently dotted the ‘I’s and crossed the ‘t’s on a whopping six-album deal with Interscope in the US. Anyone expecting braggadocio-fuelled raps about ‘ho’s, bitches, gin ‘n’ juice and other ghetto-fabulous bullshit has come to the wrong place, though. For Akira The Don’s North Wales ghetto is a dark place full of ‘cunts’, ‘flids’, and dodgy acid.

If you’re beginning to find Mike Skinner’s cheeky headline-grabbing wideboy shenanigans a bit tiresome, Akira The Don offers an equally impressive, darkly-humorous alternative. With a Salvador Dali ‘tache and a mentalist streak which borders on care-in-the-community he may not be bothering the Brit Awards committee just yet, but he’s certainly made me sit up and take notice.

Akira shows off his deft lyrical touch to great effect on cracking Brit-hop soap-opera ‘Patrick’ which is funny, tragic and even funnier still; ‘Living In The Future’ is a light-hearted tribute to the internet (which is a lot wittier than it sounds!); and final track ‘Cut You In The Face’ is a stark, brilliant, downright-nasty tribute to those he’s loved, lost, fucked and fucked over. It’s blisteringly raw; so dark it’s pitch black.

A spectacular opening salvo. Over far too quickly admittedly, but at least we’ve got six albums of it to look forward to!

In the first few seconds of All Of Our Hands we are warned that "Babylon is burning" and that "there is no promised land". Then Ohio born Joseph Arthur's vision becomes really apocalyptic. It's even sung in a brooding Johnny Cash-like growl over a sparse acoustic guitar, while an actual sonic apocalypse brews in the background, gradually reaching a suitably dramatic peak near the end when a spooky kid's choir joins in on the cheery chorus chant of "in the end, fire will rain down on our heads". As visions of doomsday go it's impressively fertile and therefore terrifying, making the ever mellowing Nick Cave sound like Tim Delaughter in comparison. Joseph Arthur's closest ally seems to be Leonard Cohen, who sung songs from an equally doomed and despairing perspective often backed by kids choir's forced to sing about death'n'stuff. In other words, it's scary but compelling music to wallow in.

Review by Ian Viggars
www.josepharthur.com
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Review by Max Churcher
www.thefashiononline.com
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Right, give me a minute to explain myself; I am a rock musician, Steveless is my band name, and I make music that is rock, whatever that means. However, increasingly I just can't help telling anyone who listens that I really hate rock music. This seems to have happened since I've started reviewing music, and can't just ignore things or turn the noise off, so this all seems to have worn me down. Rock music is more often than not boring, bland and derivative. I like something that surprises me, makes me think or gets me to smile at something I hadn't thought of myself.

A prime example of why rock music is so overrated is The Black Velvets. Offering nothing to the world except the contents of their older brother's record collection, their pointlessness offends my ears.

Glamstar is their new single, it saunters along in it’s turgid shuffle, making sure to stop at every hairy cliché along the way. It seems to be ticking off the boxes of who it wants to sound like; AC/DC check, Deep Purple check, Led Zeppelin check, Black Sabbath check, you get the picture.

I know it’s lazy journalism to compare one band to another, but lazy music drives me to it. If there was one piece of originality in this music then I’d put a little bit of effort into this review and try to think of something more interesting to say than how this song sounds like every single Classic Rock band that pollutes the airwaves of bloke radio stations like Virgin.

Ahh something interesting has just struck me in my lazy journalism, yes I’ve just realised what band this sounds most like. It’s an exact cover version of ‘Voodoo Lady’ by Crème Brule from that lovely little village of Royston Vasey. Wow that’s depressing.

So maybe it is just a joke like the League of Gentleman made with Crème Brule, and in that case maybe I like it.

Actually, it’s best to be cautious, so in case it’s not a joke I’ll just scuff it along the pavement outside my house just to be sure I can’t hear it again.

Oh that’s better.

Review by Daniel Newman
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