The Loves / Standard Fare / Evans the Death, 4 January 2011, The Lexington

Ah the Winter Sprinter. Remember this Track and Field curated annual gathering of schmindie-minded folks? It wasn’t just the usual London gits snuffling their way into the New Year with a bit of beer quaffing and band scrutinising, but people making a right proper effort from up North and that (all hail the couple who came down from the outer reaches of the Scottish Highlands in order to see Herman Dune or some such and who looked at us in disgust when we said we couldn’t be arsed travelling as far as Kilburn). It was an ace annual lark wasn’t it? Well here we are again at (Not) The Track and Field Winter Sprinter. Fortuna Pop! have proudly taken up the first-thing-in-Jan-pop-fest baton and are waving it excitably in our Christmas-dulled faces. Yay! But also Gah! Headliners Shrag have had to cancel due to illness. But then again Hurrah! we get to see a band we ain’t seen before instead.

That band is Evans The Death who are all v. young. Look at their little fresh faces – the bastards. They play a crackling selection of popmental songs, with Katherine’s loop the loopy, sweetly gulpy voice the cherry on their wonky cake of tune. Topically, for Katherine has the sniffles, they play 'Catch Your Cold' “for anyone who’s had flu or a cold in the last month” (i.e. everyone). Then there’s ‘Morning Voice’ in which Katherine displays the opposite of a morning voice - not at all croaky and grumpy, but swoopy and catching on little hooks. Meanwhile there are two lots of guitars going clang-a-lang-a lang-a in a whizz-your-heart-up-in-a-blender jangling way, plus a lot of young person’s hair to marvel at. One guitarist has Douglas Hart’s old JAMC hair. The drummer has that sweepy hair that boys have, (a style described, brilliantly, on Achewood as ‘a sideways, microwaved Byrds wig’). The bass player is magnificently gingery of mop. They also have a song called 'A Small Child Punched Me In The Face'. Good one.

Standard Fare charge through their set at a lightning pace so singer Emma can catch her train. We feel bad about detaining them with all our selfish listening to their songs and watching them play and stuff, they were expecting to be first on the bill and out of here by now, so their haste is forgivable. In my head I sort of know I like Standard Fare, but every time I see them I’m always thrilled by just how ace their songs are. Emma’s voice, with its tiny throat-catchy crack, is just the right kind of slightly hurt-sounding. Smiley-faced guitar-strangler Danny is always a joy to behold as he cheerily coaxes out tricksy melodies and skewed chords. A race through the Long Blondish ‘Fifteen’ and they’re done. Bye, then.

This may be NOT! The Track and Field Winter Sprinter, but the T&F spirit is kept aglow by the presence of Mr Paul Wright in the DJ Overlord’s box. He plays some fine rippin’ tunes, from The Bodines ‘Therese’ to a big old chunk of Nuggets garage, so the between bands sounds make for mighty fine listening too.

It seems that the people who say this kind of thing are suddenly all going ‘Oh I think I like The Loves now’ after many years of barely concealed indifference. Well it’s too late ‘cos the band have nearly finished their ‘career’ for good. We are pleased to have been witnessing their spectacle in all its myriad forms since they started. Tonight we get The Loves in competent yet entertaining mode with Simon Love and his moustache playing ringmaster to the band’s rock ‘n’ roll circus. There are tracks from their new album mixed with old faves like ‘Xs and Os’ plus added mid-set horseplay in celebration of drummer Jonny’s birthday. Tonight, being a school night, The Loves line-up does not include singer Jenna, so the lady voice sections go to Alice who gets to sing the foot-stampingly catchy ‘That Boy Is Mine’ as well as swinging her shiny locks o’er her keyboard.

On 'It's...The End Of The World', the part of Jesus (yes) is played on the album by a real-life Velvet Undergroundman Doug Yule. Here, tonight, on Pentonville Road, the part is played by the aforementioned Paul Wright who has the good grace to stand on stage like a goon until he is required to say his lines. This messianic role is initially offered to Bob Underexposed, but he declines to creep the boards for some reason (sanity?) As ever The Loves live experience is a thoroughly enjoyable bubblegum beat happening. Sadly, chances to witness it are rapidly running out.

Comet Gain / The Loft / Veronica Falls, 5 January 2011, The Lexington

Night two of NOT!! The Track and Field Winter Sprinter and, unlike last night, the Lex is packed early doors. There’s a noticeable contingent of hipster kidz, perhaps here for Veronica Falls, a band who have managed to endear themselves both to the oldsters - by sounding like bands did when the oldsters were youngsters - and to the youth by cleverly being young and presumably cool (who knows what’s cool with the kids apart from showing your pants/bum area?)

Veronica Falls begin by singing acapella three part harmonies that are all lovelee, folky, roses-and-morning-dew-ish before they get ripped into with a beat, beat smash colourburst of feisty popness. Those harmonies continue throughout the set, buzzing around the jangling guitars and bumpy drums, they’re one of the things that set VF apart from your usual jangle, smash, lalala indiepop thing and makes them extra special.

All of their songs are fabulous; Beachy Head, Stephen, Found Love In A Graveyard, have a nervy, rumbly vibe like Beat Happening running down a hill. Classic pop tunes of our time forming before our very eyes! There are covers, too but they don’t quite have the Veronica Falls pop-kick of their own songs, fewer layers of sound maybe? It’s still good to hear ‘What Goes On’ though, as it reminds me how this used to be my fave Velvets song and how we used to wig out to it at the Basement in Brighton (RIP). That’s the problem with VU covers, it’s always nice to hear ‘em, but never as good as hearing the originals. We get another cover, ‘Starry Eyes’ by Roky Erickson which works better as it’s further removed from the original and more um, Veronica-y with its rattley tambourine-topped drums and twinklingly strummy dual guitars.

Each time I see this band they seem to have flourished further, and as this set comes to a close, I’m already looking forward to my next Veronica Falls gig – their fabness seems to be increasing exponentially.

The Loft's Pete Astor is apparently an academic these days, and he certainly looks the part, in hip-prof glasses. Happily he and his fellow Loft men attack their back catalogue with ferocity, showing that old geezers with old songs can still be vital and relevant and not dull old liven-up-granddads searching for their glory days. Astor and Andy Strickland’s guitars crackle. It all goes a tad mid-tempo in the middle, but never mind ‘cos here comes ‘Why Does The Rain’ whee! I love this song and drift into a haze of ‘ooh it’s 1986 blimey!’ jangle-dreams. The old-faves-ometer is revved up further for set-closer ‘Up The Hill And Down The Slope’ which is fleet and firey and sets Comet Gain to dancing in the corner and waving their brollies in the air like they just don’t care. Which they don’t…

Sean Fortuna Pop has given Comet Gain weak beer in an attempt to keep them sober long enough for them to ‘headline’. I’m not sure that ruse has worked so well as they amble on and, by way of an introduction, David Feck sings a rambling stream of (un)consciousness in an amusingly feeble meandering voice…but then they’re off speeding into ‘Say Yes! To International Socialism’. Woo! Comet Gain are never less than highly entertaining even if they barely play a note, but when the songs come whooshing in like this and you’re caught up in their righteous, indignant flow there’s little that can touch them. Of course there’s plenty of dipshit arsing about in between songs, at one point Feck is tortuously tuning up until Jon Slade decides, “That’s good enough for this song”.

There have been murmurings about how Comet Gain are an odd choice of headliner, which Feck addresses by comparing the evening to an episode of ‘Come Dine With Me’. We’ve had the exciting starter of Veronica Falls – ‘scallops and er, kiwi fruit’, then the delicious roast dinner main course of The Loft and now the ‘disappointing dessert’ of Comet Gain, like ‘custard with skin on’.

But then there’s ‘The Fists In The Pocket’ making your stomach rollercoaster and your ears pop, and Ben Phillipson coming along to add vocal harmonies and the whole set sounding scratchy and angry and punk scuffed.

The audience shouts out for ‘Movies’ to be played as an encore, to Feck’s consternation as he can’t remember the chords. The band starts playing anyhoo leading to some very amusing non-remembrance of chords irritation where Feck keeps hissing at the band to stop playing and they ignore him. Eventually the right chords find their way back into Feck’s brain and out of his fingers and the song grows and warps, morphing into, amongst other things, ‘Mr Pharmacist’ until it is finally laid to rest. Feck miraculously manages to do a sort of outro to proceedings sung in the same wavering voice in which he began. Poetic symmetry.

Albums of 2010

Teatime Favourites – Betty And The Werewolves

Everything And More – Dolly Mixture

Phosphene Dream – The Black Angels

Mind How You Go (Revised edition) – The Advisory Circle

Cursed! - The Specific Heats

Rough Trade Shops Psych Folk 10 – Various

Voice Of The Seven Thunders - Voice Of The Seven Thunders

Halcyon Digest – Deerhunter

Before Today - Ariel Pink’s Haunted Graffiti

Innerspeaker - Tame Impla

Steeple - Wolf People

Skit I Allt - Dungen

Life! Death! Prizes! – Shrag

I Will Be - Dum Dum Girls

Shadows – Teenage Fanclub

Dream Get Together – Citay

Crazy For You – Best Coast

Celeste – The Soundcarriers

Places - Hong Kong In The 60s (download for free! at Bandcamp hongkonginthe60s.bandcamp.com)

My voice is quiet but my thoughts are loud. Fave Tunes Nov/Dec 2010

Shake The Shackles – Crystal Stilts Excellently titled mopey garage

One By One From Dorney Reach - Wolf People Led Zep monstrousness

Bright Lit Blue Skies – Ariel Pink’s Haunted Graffiti Sounds like the title says. Also sounds like SFA

Exploring The Landscape - Hong Kong In The 60s A 70s childhood car journey as spring turns to summer

Icy Lakes – Surf City Doesn’t sound that icy, but does sound like Echo And The Bunnymen trying to be Deerhunter

Goodbye - Best Coast Singsong bratty cuteness with good thumpy drums and the line, ‘I wish my cat could talk’

Silbury Sands – Wolf People If you don’t feel the need to headbang to this you are very wrong

Write About Love - Belle And Sebastian A v. groovy beat tune

Sophie Softly - Gruff Rhys Sugary folk-pop-sike, “She breakfasted on orange flakes and purple pop”

No Strength - The Cavalcade Summer days gentle popiness then fab fizzing fuzz bit mysteriously appears

Mirrors – Crocodiles For the very exciting Krautrocking intro

Gruff Rhys / H. Hawkline – 26 November 2010, Toynbee Studios

We haven’t been to Toynbee Hall since the beloved Arts Café, scene of many a top pop happening, was closed. So it’s weird to find that our former groovy gig place is now merely the bar in which us Gruff Rhys ‘aficionados’ are expected to gather as we await the opening of the doors that lead into Toynbee Studios and tonight’s show. It’s even more of a surprise to find that beyond those doors there’s this really nice little theatre, with red velvet chairs and a big stage and everything. Was this hidden gem lurking back here all those times we crammed ourselves into the Arts Café defying health and safety and the fire officer?

We settle in our seats for the support band H. Hawkline, who include alongside Mr H himself, Sweet Baboo on bass. Due to not setting out for the gig until quite late they have opted not to bring a keyboard with them, so we are treated to a scuffed and garagey set. The whole caboodle is endearingly, eccentricly groovy, but the stand out song is ‘Hells Bells’ with its Jonathan Richman vocals, Velvets at their crunchy garage-iest chug, deeply fuzzy guitar AND a false ending.

Burbling away half to himself, clad in a ‘Christmas jumper’ that only he could make alluring, Gruff Rhys’ solo show essentially involves watching a loveable eccentric pottering about in his shed. Spread before him is a table full of gizmos to be employed in piecing together his fine array of songs.

Before he gets to play with his toys, we get an utterly sweet-hearted set played on acoustic guitar. This consists of tracks from first album ‘Yr Atal Genhedlaeth' and songs from the forthcoming ‘Hotel Shampoo’ and is kicked off with the introduction “This song accompanied the genocide scene in a film I was involved with.” There is plenty of this skew-whiff dead-panning throughout the evening. As anyone who’s managed to decipher his on-stage announcements with Super Furries will attest, Rhys is not just a brilliantly creative musician and a pretty face, he’s a bone-dry wit as well.

Amongst the new tracks we get; ‘the first song I’ve written with the word ‘Poland’ in it’; the short and incredibly sweet bubblegum psych-folk of ‘Sophie Softly’, and the cutely funky ‘Sensations In The Dark’. For the latter, Rhys shuffles along the stage to a dark spot to demonstrate a keyboard with keys that light-up. The lighting man misguidedly illuminates him, so Gruff sweetly asks for the lights to be turned down again, “Er, excuse me, I was trying to get into the dark”. This keyboard of wonderment, we are told, also features a rhythm track that sounds like 'Gangster's Paradise' by Coolio. For the purposes of the song, it gets sped up. The adorable, shivery single ‘Shark Ridden Waters’ becomes an entirely different beast played acoustically with just a one note drone from a er, droney box as accompaniment, eerie and wistful.

The first half of the set over, Rhys settles down at the table amongst the bird song albums, children’s percussion instruments, LED drumsticks, decks, metronome and other unidentified noise-making implements to introduce us to his ‘chat show’ entitled ‘Resist Phoney Encores’. The first guest (accompanied by his own ‘theme song’ as Rhys slaps a seven inch onto a turntable), is Sweet Baboo singing ‘Twelve Carrots of Love’ in his inimitable cracked country way.

Next guest, introduced with a spot of Krautrock as her theme tune, is Lisa Jen. She ices frosty clear vocals over “Lonesome Words”, managing to make a simple song with acoustic guitar, metronome and Rhys’ singing into something ethereally beautiful. Jen stays to add her voice to a selection of tunes from Candylion; a brief clap-along assault on 'Gyrru Gyrru Gyrru' a toe-tapping ‘Court Of King Arthur’. The latter, “A song about archaeology, even though I know nothing about it”, gets a reprise when a Scottish voice pipes up from the audience, “Can you play that one again? I was in the toilet”. Gruff obliges with ‘the best bit’ from the middle section of the song and the Scottish bloke is appeased, “Thanks!”

Rhys makes an attempt at a new song, ‘If We Were Words (We Would Rhyme)’ which he forgot to play during the first half. Jen is encouraged to beat time on a tambourine, but reveals she has never ‘played drums’ apart from when a friend taught her to play the opening to a Faith No More song (she demonstrates this with a bit of air drumming). The song doesn’t get far before Rhys falters, Jen asks, ‘Am I putting you off?’ and the song is abandoned. Happily it makes an appearance later in the encore and is well worth the wait, a lilting, bittersweet waltz.

‘Cycle Of Violence’ ends with Rhys sampling and looping his own voice, singing harmonies with himself so that the song floats on a layer of vocal drones. These are topped off with a trademark Rhys scream – also sampled into the mix but its inclusion kept mercifully brief – the guy can sing sweetly, but he sure can holler too.

The room frequently fills with laughter at Rhys’ gnomic comments, there’s obviously a lot of affection for him and his music (with a few sprinklings of lust). This is the happiest, friendliest gig I’ve been to for a long time. And I’ve been to Indietracks.

The final encore sees Rhys joined by all his guests to play Kevin Ayres’ nursery-rhyme-like 'Religious Experience (Singing a Song in the Morning)', its refrain pretty much sums up our evening, “Don’t even know what I’m singing about, but it makes me feel I feel alright.”

The Pains Of Being Pure At Heart / 14 Iced Bears / The Zebras – 2 December 2010, 229 The Venue

It’s flippin’ freezing out, but a cockle-warming bill of indiepop delights awaits us at ULU-ish place 229 The Venue, which turns out to have a neck-achingly high stage and an exciting /dusty netherworld beneath that stage which we discover upon lifting the little curtain that hides it. Also, the stage is VERY PRECIOUS and you must never, ever touch it with your grimy, ticket-paying, gig-attending fingers. This is made clear by a bouncer at the front who glares and gestures at any misguided fool who happens to rest a palm upon the stage when taking a photo, or just, you know, standing there enjoying the band.

Anyway, The Zebras are on before we can finish getting in the door, so we rush in as they’re sounding pretty fine even from the cloakroom queue. I’ve been vaguely aware of the band (they played Indietracks a couple of years ago, but we weren’t looking), but hadn’t investigated them. Tonight’s set makes me immediately purchase their e.p. ‘New Ways Of Risking Our Lives’. They make me think of The Go Betweens, not just because they’re Australian, it’s their bright shining sound; big, chiming guitars with a tiny touch of hardness, and lovely things happening when harmonies get sung. The Zebras are soaringly splendid and a rousing way to kick things off.

Next, 14 Iced Bears. I have surprised myself by feeling quite excited by this re-emergence of the Iceys. It’s not like I didn’t see them plenty of times in days of yore, but it seems they hold a special place in my heart. I loved 14 Iced Bears because their songs grew from being really quite cutesy/shambly (‘Dolphin Song’ is played) to going kind of spaced ‘n’ slightlydelic (e.g. ‘Mother Sleep’, and don’t forget they’ve been known to cover ‘Interstellar Overdrive’). They play an excellently chosen selection from across their back catalogue that pleases me and the three other people in the room who know all their songs.

Really, it’s a killer setlist, with the likes of ‘Cut’, ‘Hay Fever’, ‘Dust Remains’, the heart-breaking ‘Sure To See’, fizzing last ever single ‘Hold On’ and yes, ‘Balloon Song’ (this one gets a clutch of indie poppers bobbling about like bubbles in a milkpan). My all time fave ‘Surfacer’ gets an airing with its swooshy sun-addled swoon and the set closes with the thrilling Copey sparkle of ‘World I Love’.

Rob's vocals are still sweet-hearted and crystal-tipped, but unfortunately the sound is severely bass heavy, with nuances destroyed in the burble.The band seem on good form though, and they are original members (well, if you count late-period guitarist Tim), not just Rob Sekula and some blokes. Rob takes to the stage sensibly snow-shod in wellies – which makes the swirls of dry ice that precede the band’s arrival very amusing indeed.

I’m not sure 14 Iced Bears have made much of an impression on the youngsters who edge closer to the (very high, must NOT touch) stage in anticipation of the Pains, but you never know, maybe the kids will be inspired to investigate the oldsters’ music. After all, a gaggle of boys next to us gets quite excited when The Smiths are played – singing along with gusto. One of them is wearing a Stone Roses tee-shirt, causing us to contemplate the fact that these persons weren’t even born when our fave bands of the eighties were in their ‘pomp’. It’s like us digging the sixties, excavating the past in search of present day thrills. Mental!

Talking of present day thrills…hey, hey it’s the Pains! And they are on fine ‘n’ feisty form, playing with a lot more punch than at their slightly weary Heaven show earlier in the year (though maybe not with quite as much ‘vivacity’ as at their secret Buffalo Bar gig in the summer – hoo! that was a firecracker). We realise that this is the third year in a row that we have seen the Pains play a December show – what a fine festive tradition. The set is still pretty similar to that of two years ago – top-loaded with faves: ‘This Love Is Fucking Right’, ‘Young Adult Friction’, ‘Come Saturday’, ‘Everything With You’... We’ve seen the band play these songs quite a lot by now, God knows how many times they must have played them, so hats off to ‘em for still managing to make these oldies but goodies into zippy pop blasts of noisy joy.

We get a sprinkling of new tracks, but not as many as we’d been anticipating – especially after the tantalising array of new songage we got at that Buffalo Bar show. The set ends, as tradition/drink seems to dictate with us olden folk jumping up and down gleefully to ‘The Pains of Being Pure at Heart’. The encore bit begins with Kip’s sweet, solo take on, ‘Contender’, before a boom-tastic finale of ‘Gentle Sons’ (with the inside of my head singing ‘The Hardest Walk’ along to it) sends us off into the night mufflered up against the cold, ears happily muffled by noisy guitars.

Dungen / Wolf People / Jim Molyneux – Islington Academy, 16 November 2010

Jim Molyneux plays to an exceedingly sparse crowd, but few though we are, we appreciate the way his fingers fly over his accordion. Molyneux plays folk songs old, new and Richard Thompson, and is joined at points by chums on violin, thumpy cajón/cuban box drum thingy and for one song, some excellent combined violin playing/clog dancing.

Prog – eww! what? Growing up in the 80s with my musical landscape dictated by the year zero-ness of punk, I avoided prog and all that crazy hippy shit for a v. long time. Psych was okay, but prog? long old rambling guitar solos, stuff about elves and giants? Jeez! Now though, I have accepted prog into my life. Dungen have probably contributed a lot to my appreciation of this long-time maligned form. And Wolf People have helped me see the light too. I am exceedingly pleased that they are playing tonight as I have been digging their fuggily storming LP 'Steeple' a fair old bit. They have lyrics about raising a glass to sulphur skies, and putting arms around the weather. They have heavy guitars with great funky bits, such as the evil truckin’, whole lotta lovin’ ‘One By One From Dorney Reach’. They sound like Yes, Focus and Black Sabbath. When they play ‘Silbury Sands’ people cannot stop themselves head-banging a bit, because it sounds immense and well rockin’. A large, be-stetsoned man air-guitars like a mental and we know what he means.

Dungen are flat-out amazing, an act of wonderment, and it’s a massive mystery why this gig isn’t packed to the gunwales. Still, the crowd is eager and fanatical, and the hour-long set speeds by.

Singer / main man Gustav Ejstes twists between sitting centre-stage at the piano, piping wiggily on a flute and jumping up to freak out mightily with a tambourine. Hair bear bunch bass player Mattias hunches over his guitar battling a few amp problems (Wolf People shuffle on discreetly with their amp as a replacement) whilst on the other side of the stage guitarist Reine creates eerie and elegant sounds. The set leans on the jazz-tinged skyscape of latest LP ‘Skit I Allt’.

Dungen sound luminous. Their songs wheel and slide, rhythms glancing and changing, underpinned by Johan Holmegard’s furious, complicated drumming. It’s a pleasure to behold a band playing so skilfully together, and not in a widdly guitar hero way - during the fast bits they skim around each other like swallows on a summer evening. This isn't difficult, chin-rubbing music, this is a band letting their creativity fly whilst keeping a tight hold on the tunes. Sometimes they’re languorous, floating through the skies, sometimes they crunch and fuzz, like on old fave ‘Panda’. The high points (and there are LOADS) are firework displays and cloud bursts. Dazzling.

December Boy -The Loves (Fortuna Pop!)

And so as The Loves stomp ever closer to the end of their ten year tenure as Britain’s best bubblegum garage soap opera, we find them releasing a REAL HUMDINGER of a tune. I have been thoroughly enjoying ‘December Boy’ every time The Loves play it live and now here it is to cherish as a real life record (limited quantities on pink vinyl!) / ethereal sound file.

It’s a huge upbeat pop thing, a big old chimimg wall of sound on which Jenna gets to do a silky swoon of a lead vocal accompanied by Emma Pocketbooks and the erstwhile Liz Love; not to mention ‘real life violins’ and woo! an anthemic key change. Brilliantly, it contains ear-nagging snippets of about a billion other pop hits, e.g. ‘I Don’t Like Mondays’, ‘I Think We’re Alone Now’, ‘The Locomotion’, ‘Total Eclipse Of The Heart’ (yes), as well as the obvious nod to Big Star. Luckily, it’s oh so much more than the sum of its parts, a giant wintery snog with a head full of whirling snow flakes and long lost girl group songs.

‘B side’ ‘Bubblegum’ is a todally groovee, shake yer bubble-butt, wig out baby, go-go garage, freak-out frantic, teeteringly unhinged, fuzzed and shrieking pop-sike attack lead by Simon’s slur-y, sleazy, vocal whine. Your nineteenth nervous breakdown never sounded so much fun.

www.fortunapop.com/release_details.php?cat_no=FPOP101

Give me strength to continue. Fave Tunes Sept /Oct 2010

When We Go Courting - Shrag V. dance-inducing one note guitar clangalanging, and the line ‘Deep in the darkness of June I dissolved in your room’.

Desire Lines – Deerhunter A lush Sunshine Playroom rush

Skit I Allt – Dungen Not sure what they’re singing about, but it sounds like Dungen are having a spangly Scando time

Fountain Stairs – Deerhunter All skyscrapey

Life’s A Gift (Feel It) – Groovy Uncle Really rather more than slightlydelic

Entrance Song - The Black Angels Proper menacing biker psych

Clear Motive - The Higher State Ooh! Byrdsy / Paisley Undergroundish

Teacher – Surf City Like a whipped up candyfloss Mary Chain. Yeah!

Shark Ridden Waters – Gruff Rhys The Groovie Ghoulies on a cruise. I have to listen to this several times a day.

Untitled II – Ulaan Khol Monstrous scree of guitar in a noise landslide

Thee Eager Younger Fraternity Bop pt 2 – Comet Gain (with Crystal Stilts) Desperate, unhinged handclappin’ pop party.

Hearts Of Love – Crocodiles Nasty fuzz with lovely twinkly bits

Imagine Hearts – Ringo Deathstarr Unreconstructed tremolo action. Woobly.

In Debt - Jonny Cola & The A-Grades (Corporate Records)

Jonny Cola & The A-Grades are bastards. Their idea of quirky promotional material is a letter with FINAL NOTICE typed large across the top – so at first glance your heart leaps into your mouth, argh! what? Oh ha ha, the album is called ‘In Debt’.

And your hammering heart isn’t allowed a moment’s respite ‘cos ‘In Debt’ is stuffed with sparkling, strutting glam-Brit pop. Imagine that Britpop hadn’t become a sorry, degraded thing. That the initial shine and shiver had led to euphoric epiphanies and perfectly puckered pop kisses in a starburst universe where guitars scrawled and caterwauled like alleycats. That kind of thing.

Alex’s rather fine voice - a little clipped and Bowie-ish here, glammily sneering there - is shown off to full swooning advantage on slow-burn anthemic opener, ‘Fireworks / Gunshots’, an urban torch song that bursts into beautiful bombast, guitars squiggling all over, setting the tone for this album of rocked-up grubby glam.

A double-handed attack from A-Grade guitar heroes Mauro Venegas and Jez Leather powers the songs along, guitars slashing ‘n’ sneering, hurtling between full-on widdly skree bits, skydiving shimmers and strutting, fuzzed up, headstocks-akimbo riffing.

The glorious ‘Postcode Wars’ speaks of floaty shirts, fly-away scarves and dubiously dyed hair and is a teensy bit disco. Get the louche bass in the chorus, oh yes! ‘Greenhouse’ is deliciously hips-out-of-joint funky. ‘Offline’ is a fist in your face squall of feedback and ferocity, and the darkly luxuriant ‘Hideaway 37’ shivers with strategically placed glitter.

But the elation is cast with shadows, even as the chorus of ‘Marlborough Road’ soars skyward, pulling your heart along in its vapour stream, Alex is singing, “I fell apart on Marlborough Road”. And is that a slightly barbed remark I detect in stompy, snarly, snarky single ‘The Party’s Over’? “We might as well move to Luxembourg, though not for the sake of your bank account”.

For all the pose-striking and pop heroics, ‘In Debt’ has a ferocity of intent, an underlying defiant anger. It’s an album that delivers viciously glamorous battle songs for fighting back against the gloom. A useful arsenal in these dark times.

www.jonnycolaandtheagrades.net

www.myspace.com/jonnycolaandtheagrades