19 March 2008

The Metros – Education Pt 2
As part of the 1965 cohort, Peckham based The Metros are positively strewn with anticipation. Their South London indie pop is like Maccabees' chavvy cousin, talking about getting nicked in the waiting room at Heathrow instead of toothpaste kisses. This is slightly naughty, and a bit cheeky, if you can get over the South London accents. Are they the Kate Nash to Maccabees' Lily Allen?

The Elvis Suicide – Surveying The Young Professionals / If I Don’t Run
Produced by Sci-Fi Steve formerly of Bis, The Elvis Suicide are ready to unleash themselves on the rest of the UK. Mixing Modern Lovers attitude with Misfits-style guitars and short sharp punk tunes, The Elvis’ are surely in for the sparkly cape treatment.

Bricolage – Footsteps
In France, there is a chain of stores called Monsieur Bricolage, they are a bit like Homebase. That doesn’t necessarily have a lot to do with the louche 80’s tinged pop of Glasgow-based Bricolage, another small step on the road to synth pop dominance of 2008.

Eight Page Pullout – Stand Up EP
You would never guess that EPP are Scottish, they sound more American than a car lot and more pop punk than Blink 182. Hoping to do what The View did for indie (just don’t mention Glasvegas – you wouldn’t want to diminish any of that bounce!).

Model Horror – We Are Here
Shouty, angular, art rock. Think Foals with a secret 16 year-old nu-metaller past, hiding under all that Hoxton hair.

Slaves To Gravity – My Regulator
The illegal bastard child of Kurt Cobain and Chad Kroeger, billed as ‘postmillennial rock’; very good or very bad, in the words of Big Brother, “You decide”.

Echobeat – Cobra Kai
Hard to classify, Southampton-based rock hellraisers Echobeat are big on guitars and pace.

The Humanity – Bass Linear
Apparently this is the sound of the “credit-ability crunch”. What it in fact represents is the wondrous genre of nu-grave, which sounds pretty much like nu-rave / electro but with lyrics about ghosts and fire, glory and death.

Tubelord – Feed Me A Box Of Words
Complex, engaging; full of potential. Tubelord are from Kingston and they are exciting in more ways than one. Jumping from Foals to Biffy, a scream to a falsetto and everywhere in between there is a schizophrenic energy driving this sampler. Give them a year to remove some of the excess rockiness and they will be a force to reckon with.

BoyKillBoy – Promises
This sounds unremarkably indie; not bad, just dated. 

Holly Rose – I Don’t Care
Country stylings, in the form of Ms Rose’s voice underlay this weird reggae backed and rather bland and weakly performing tune.