04 April 2008 Pt. I

Radiohead - Nude
This is as close as Radiohead are ever going to return to their 'classic' sound - it features guitars recognisably sounding like guitars, Thom's voice is not modulated or chopped up and it's pretty easy to emote to. Palpably gorgeous, which makes a nice change. Old-school.

Slagsmalsklubben - Sponsored By Destiny
We have been banging on and on about this quite astonishing band for months now, which makes us both prescient and hipper than you. SMK - which we aren't going to type out again in full - means, we are informed, 'fight club', and is a band featuring six geeky looking Swedes who make the most astonishingly cerebral, euphoric, righteous analogue synth music. We are not joking when we say that SMK are easily 2008's The Knife And Then Some, and that you need them in your life. Indispensable.

Felix Da Housecat - Radio
He invented house music, did Felix, while he was still a teenager, which is something that could improve any CV. Here he casually dashes off another polished blast of lounge electro. It's commercially-tinted, but no less easy on the ears. He's not shy with the remixes either. Louche.

Turbowölf - Bite Me Like A Dog
Man, were we about to be snotty about this band, all because their umlaut made them look like ghastly pretenders. In fact, Turbowölf are the very embodiment of pure and unfettered top-drawer awesome, being basically the band we were promised that Enter Shikari would be but weren't. We scoffed when they told us you could splice speed metal and cheesey synthpop. We are not scoffing now, because we are too busy tucking into our own fallacious words. Barmy.

Camille - Gospel With No Lord
We have had a blinding opening salvo of singles this week; nothing has yet gone into the bin, which is leaving our trigger fingers itchy. Thank the lord then, for nauseating Frenchie Camille. Over to you, press release (our bolds): 'Gospel With No Lord demonstrates Camille's ability to fuse tribal rhythms, body percussion, freestyle jazz and native Gallic sounds'. By our calculations, this is the wankiest combination of bullshit influences yet to collide in the history of song, if not culture as a whole. Purging.

Jim Noir - What U Gonna Do
Pleasant but totally unnecessary jangle-pop, re-emphasising to anyone who'll listen, viz. no-one, that the 60s are OVER. Anonymous.

Ungdomskulen - Modern Drummer
We like this song and all, but we can't find much to say about it. It's a bit of a mess, but not in a bad way, we guess. Faintly-praised.

Black Francis - The Seus
Man from The Pixies takes another step along path of mediocrity. If the guitar wanking on offer here were actual wanking, you wouldn't call it vintage. Bad analogy? Bad song. Ass.

Bauhaus - Too Much 21st Century
Et tu, Bauhaus? This is a legitimately dreadful release from a once mighty band, laid low by the ravages of age and the encroachment of curmudgeonly middle age. Tear-jerkingly dreadful.

Navvy - Robot
Workmanlike angular music which might have moved units back in '06, provided no-one listened too hard. Like The Futureheads but charmless. Antiquated.

Stone Sour - Zzyzx Road
A soaring, piano-led hard rock epic of a ballad. It's enjoyable in the faces of all sorts of things like good taste, discernment and credibility, and we are a total sucker for it. Sorry.

Uber Room - Looking Forward To Nothing
Bad.