The FratellisWe’re going to kick off our Electric Gardens Festival preview today. I don’t know how many of the performing bands I’m going to be able to get through by August 6, but seeing as I won’t feature any of the crap ones, I should be able to do okay.

Following on for my post asking for suggestions where to start the other day, I’m going to start with a band I wasn’t previously familiar with, .

The Fratellis are a three-piece from Glasgow, and their sound is interesting to say the least. Based on their look, I expected a pretty standard rock band, but their songs managed to surprise me. Even their more standard rock numbers have a unique sound to them, while other songs play around in completely different genres. There’s a certain freewheeling quality to all of these songs, which is showcased here in ‘Cigarello’. It’s a rambling, punchy, rock out number that partly feels like it’s just stumbled in from the seventies, and partly feels like something completely new.

MP3 The Fratellis – Cigarello (expired)

The Fratellis: Website || Myspace

As an aside, I’m noticing that North American bands are way ahead of the curb when it comes to given away mp3s of their music. I struggle to find one downloable song for the vast majority of UK bands I want to write about, but never have any trouble with American ones. I guess UK record labels still haven’t quite discovered what “that Myspace thing” is yet.