Another Form of Relief

Great British Hopes features the rare new British bands that don’t make me want to go deaf.

The mighty Wichita Recordings have recruited another into their already daunting ranks with the signing of Sky Larkin. The Leeds band have been floating around critics’ radars for some time now, but it’s taken until now for them to find a home. This now means that their first full length abum will be arriving sometime in the near future, with it recently being recorded in New York.

Molten, previously a single, is one of the songs on it, and while not their strongest work lyrically, it does give a good sample of the Sky Larkin sound. The guitars are rough, noise drops in and out constantly, and vocals occasionally shout from the background. It’s a hell of a lot of noise for only three people to making really.

Now how about touring again with fellow Wichita band Los Campesinos! to flog both of their albums? Just saying.

Great British Hopes features band that are great, British, and fill us with hope for the future of music. Or something like that.

Cheerful, upbeat songs with melodies that go all over the place. Throw in some random shouting and handclaps. No, the result is not Los Campesinos! for once (more on them later though!), but rather Liverpool’s Elle S’appelle, who manage to capture the same kind of sound with less than half the number of band members. Very efficient and very impressive. It may all be a little too sickly sweet for some, but it works well for those of us that don’t need our indie music to make us want to kill ourselves.

Great British Hopes collects the best bands from THE WORLD OF TOMORROW!

Posting about Kotki Dwa on here has been a long time coming. I originally intended to write about them when I first came up with Great British Hopes last year, but never managed to find the time. Still, nine months on and they still sound as good as they did in the first place.

The band are a three-piece from Bristol, Leeds and Milton Keynes, because being from one place is just so last year. They make straight up indie rock with just a dash of electronica thrown in. It’s all rather to the point, and much as it may pain me to admit, radio friendly. Which when you’re as good as this, may not actually be a bad thing.

Great British Hopes collects the very best in unsigned acts from the UK.

This week saw the release of the first proper release from Royal Treatment Plant, the eight song Hope is Not Enough. Over the past two years, the band have really blossomed, moving up from a rough support act for Los Campesinos! into a solid band in their own right. Their excesses have been reigned in and everything is a little bit more polished. In a lot of bands I would be moaning about that, but in works in Royal Treatment Plant’s favour. The vocals of lead PP have undergone the most significant change. Now moving between sweet and bitter and aggressive at just the right moments, she dictates the tone of these songs perfectly. Crack Whore, one of the gentler songs on the record, demonstrates this growth perfectly.

Great British Hopes collects the very best in unsigned acts from the UK.

Another band influenced by the mighty Life Without Buildings? They seem to be popping up everywhere these days, and if it were another band, I might be getting a little weary of it. LWB never had time to fulfill their potential, so any band attempting to pick up where they left off is welcome.

Which is a little unfair to Stricken City, who have a lot more going for them than one influence. A clean beat drives everything forwards, guitars float in and out and the vocals have just a vague sense of disconnect from everything else. Which for once, is absolutely fine. This isn’t music that’s about the specifics. It’s all about the atmosphere.

You can download the entire Tak o Tak EP for free from Stricken City’s website.

I know I’ve posted this song somewhere in the region of thirty to forty times at this point, but seeing as Esiotrot aren’t huge yet, it needs pushing once more. Or more accurately, the band posted a bunch of new songs on their Myspace, all of which are superb, but I can’t post any of those, so you get this one again. Not that repeating this song does it any harm, as it remains my favourite song from last year, which is no mean feat this far on. Usually my ADD music brain would have moved onto something entirely new by this point, but this one remains. The new songs are currently being shopped around to labels who will hopefully put out a new full length album. Be sure to check out Emily Scott Got Married too, the sequel (if songs have sequels) to the song below.

Great British Hopes collects the very best in unsigned acts from the UK.

If you’re anything like me, you pine for more bands that sounds like they just stumbled in from the 90s US alternative scene. Granted, this may be a somewhat strange nostalgia trip for someone who didn’t really get into such things until this decade, but what should that matter?

Dutch Husband are a Bournemouth band who seem to have arrived by way of California circa 1994. The deliberately scrappy guitar work and disinterested sounding vocals are so good that you even feel inclined to forgive the slightly lazy chorus. Then again, with a band like this, lazy is half of the charm.

Great British Hopes will be a recurring feature between now and the end of the year, looking at the best bands on the verge of greatness the UK has to offer.

Yep, I’m awesome.

Here is what I said about Johnny Foreigner back in January:

Their recorded songs sound like they were recorded from the inside of a steel dustbin.

Here’s what I am saying about them now:

Johnny Foreigner are the best band in the country right now.

Which is technically inaccurate as they just flew out to New York, but we won’t be picky about the trivial details. It seems fitting that one of our Great British Hopes should be one of the first British bands I wrote about at the start of the year, and no one deserves it more than these guys. It was almost a year ago to the day that I first encountered Johnny Foreigner, playing second on a bill of four bands to a half empty room in the Dublin Castle. Their live performance blew me away, but their recorded material sounded terrible, hence the above quote.

What a difference a year can make though. Over the past twelve months, a bunch of new songs have appeared, each sounding better than the last. The production values have improved dramatically, as has their ability. The songwriting is far more refined, and even the recorded songs now capture the same reckless abandon that their live show did. The band made the finals of Channel 4’s Road to V contest, has supported Los Campesinos!, Idlewild and probably a bunch of other highly regarded bands.

All of which has led to them finally signing a record deal with Best Before Records, who will be releasing their first proper EP/mini album thing in the next few weeks. The new songs from it that I’ve heard are stunning, even blowing the ones below out the water. Seriously, this band has made me more excited about anything musically than I have been in quite some time. These guys will be huge. It’s only a matter of time.

MP3 Johnny Foreigner - Sometimes in the Bullring (expired)
MP3 Johnny Foreigner - Our Bipolar Friends (expired)

What others are saying..

“..quite incapable of producing anything other than an unholy racket.” - To Die By Your Side

“Very excitable, very inspiring, very potent” - The Runout Groove

Johnny Foreigner’s debut release, Arcs Across the City will be released via Best Before Records toward the end of November. At a guess, I’d say the 26th. You can listen to a bunch of the songs on it at the band’s Myspace. While there you can also download I Like You Mostly Late At Never, their 15 song demo.

Johnny Foreigner: Myspace