Support: Brontide, Tall Ships

Minus The Bear are that rarest of things: a truly sensational band wrapped in a modest and unassuming package.

Content in playing mid-level venues & mid-billing at festivals across the UK (despite being a much bigger deal in their native US), you could almost be forgiven for not being too familiar with Minus The Bear – you could almost be forgiven for not knowing they’ve been at the forefront of guitar & loop-driven indie music for the last nine years – and you could almost be forgiven for not realising that, without them, contemporary indie success stories, like Foals, Battles & Bloc Party wouldn’t have their ‘signature’ sound. Minus The Bear are the germination point. And they’re bloody good live, too.

Finding myself early enough to catch most of Brontide and all of Tall Ships (the evening’s support) I’m in a good position to express my apathy for both these acts – though they’re not entirely to blame.

Scala’s a brilliant little venue; it’s a converted cinema (very, very, cool) & it’s just two minutes walk from King’s Cross – brilliant – but it takes some work getting the sound spot on and it wasn’t quite there for either of the opening acts. I will say, however, that they’re both talented bands, nothing inspirational, but very talented in terms of their musical ability. Biggest shout goes to Tall Ships who were slightly better and made Brontide sound a bit like an instrumental Tall Ships cover band.

The main event, however, was Minus The Bear. You might’ve already guessed where I’m going with this, but they were fantastic. Again, the sound wasn’t all there (a little muddy here and there with the levels in need of constant attention), but playing ‘the longest set of the tour’ and indulging the crowd with old favorites like ‘Pachuca Sunrise’ & ‘Get Me Naked 2: Electric Boogaloo’ and treading new ground with tracks of 2010’s ‘Omni’ album went down well with everyone. Their live guitar looping, perfectly timed delay and trademark stop-start sound come off live in a way you mightn’t expect; there’s no sense of ‘okay, all this electronic stuff works on record, but it’s hard to bring it to life on stage’ – they do it, and they do it with sensational flare and admirable skill.

Well done to anyone who queued to get tickets on the night and managed, I’m sure it was worth it, and commiserations to anyone that didn’t – better luck next time. You missed a blinder.

Worcester-born folk musician Andy Robinson cites Tom Waits and Bob Dylan as influences, but 'That's All I Really Want' has more in common with a third American icon: Patrick Bateman. Like American Psycho's fictional investment banker, the track's slick, professional exterior hides a hollow, soulless interior. There's a vacuum where the song's heart should be. I wouldn't let it near any coathangers.

Superficially, this is a competent track. Robinson has a pleasant voice, reminiscent of David Gray, and he's a talented multi-instrumentalist. The chirpy strings and guitar are, at least, inoffensive. There's a verse, then there's a chorus, then a verse, then a chorus. Once the song has finished though, you won't be able to remember a single thing about it. It's disturbingly inconsequential. If it was any more slight it would no longer exist.

The lyrics don't help matters. Robinson yearns for the simple life. He wants 'a place by the sea with a record playing/and an old beaten guitar'. This inane sentiment undermines his claimed kinship with Waits and Dylan, two songwriters with some startling things to say and interesting ways of saying them. The disparity between 'That's All I Really Want' and Dylan's urgent political material is depressing. Still, one supposes that young folk musicians can't be expected to convey any sort of political message. It's not like the country has recently been involved in an illegal war, or the economy has just collapsed, or the far-right have been enjoying worrying electoral success, is it? Oh.

Robinson has been championed by Terry Wogan, which makes a certain amount of sense, and fans of the slick, unobtrusive music which Wogan regularly promotes may find something here to entertain them. Personally, I'd like some contemporary folk music which avoids tossed-off cliches and makes an effort to actually say something. That's what I really want.

Heading into the second half of the year 2010, it's got to be getting increasingly difficult to come up with a band name that's both ear catching and original; but seriously The Christophers, is that really the best you can come up with? Band name niggles aside though, 7/11 the new single from these UK indie rockers is a decent slice of guitar driven pop that straddles the line between new wave, disco and alt rock.

Catchy melodies, loose limbed beats and guitars that veer between syncopated funk and punkish rock combine of a song that whilst hardly groundbreaking or breath taking, is a pleasant groove driven mash up between Franz Ferdinand, LCD Soundsystem and Kasabian.

The Christophers don't deliver anything particularly unique or stand out ish here, with understated vocals that feel a little copy and paste stopping the band from ever really shining, 7/11 ultimately feels a little underwhelming at times. Still, decent enough to suggest that The Christophers are a band with the potential to impress more in the future, 7/11 is well worth a listen.

Cambridge based rockers Lonely The Brave are an outfit big on chest thumping anthemics and heart on the sleeve emotion, a band cut from the same cloth as outfits such as Creed, Live and Nickelback. So yes, we're talking earnest vocal crooning, big guitar bluster and pedestrian sounding rock tropes.

With debut EP, BACKROADS the four piece take it about as safe and steady as possible, these UK rockers doing there level best to sound as Americanized and middle of the rock road as possible, essentially marking themselves out as Bush for the year 2010. BACKROADS is a song that sounds tailor made to capture the Radio 2 daytime demographic whilst still attempting to eek out a modicum of alt rock cred at the same time, echoes of Biffy Clyro amidst the chest beating anthemics. Whilst not necessarily doing anything particularly offensive, Lonely The Brave instead offer up something polished but ordinary in BACKROADS, a song that feels far too mired in the average and expected to ever really shine; a song thats the very definition of safe and middle of the road.

Elsewhere here, the band stick steadfastly to the same formula; songs such as BLACK SAUCERS and VICTORY LINE lessons in by the numbers rock that ironically for all the up front emotional twang feel ultimately soulless and polished to the point or irrelevance.

Lonely The Brave are undoubtedly one of those bands who'll go on to massive things over the course of the coming months, but with BACKROADS they present an EP so safe, predictable and expected that you'll find it hard to care.

Sometimes a strange or unusual vocal can actually lend its self to a piece of music, offering an interesting or unique third dimension to a track; in the case of artists like Devendra Banhart or Joanna Newsom it’s been key to their success. But, more often than not, with most artists, it just comes off as being…well, strange and unusual. Such is the case with Netherlands own Fourteen Twentysix (aka Chris Van Der Linden).

Finally, a band who can answer that cliched interview question, so just how did you name your band? with a genuinely compelling reason. The Hundred Days a band formed in San Francisco in 2005 who made a commitment of one hundred days locked away in the same house, perfecting their sound; later settling of that commitment as their ultimate band name.

Following the release of last years WITH/AVEC EP, Plants And Animals are a Montreal based outfit about to release their debut UK album, LA LA LAND.

THE MAMA PAPA is the first single to be lifted from that record, a song that unlike much of the albums more laid back and dreamlike excursions is a full bloodied pop tune full of upbeat bravado and chirpy, energetic urgency. Plants And Animals do a decent job of fusing elements of the Super Furry Animals, ELO, Supertramp and Blur here, even adopting the guitar sting from Simple Mind's Waterfront to punctuate the songs ever so catchy and infectious hook laden chorus.

With a clothed squid-like creature on the front cover and a name like ‘Escape from Kraken Castle’, you might expect the second album from Applicants to only be enjoyed by Xbox geeks and ketamine-induced electro vegetables.
If you were to look past the computer game artwork and open your mind a little to something a little different, you will realise the absolute genius of this little-known London based three-piece.

Nine times out of ten, where music is concerned, there’s a generally accepted formula for new releases that reads something like this:

strength of previous releases + time elapsed since previous release * anticipation = disappointment