Ripchord – Lock Up Your Daughters (Watch)
These bouncy Wolverhampton-based indie kids (all are under 20) are Arctic Monkeys meets Kaiser Chiefs, strong accents with a jangly punch, and their star is rising fast. They won a competition on Midlands Today (a local news programme) for bands from local schools to get a day in a recording studio and a song played on Radio 1. Now they have a single coming out, earning plenty more radio play, and they seem like great fun so I think they’re going to do quite well. They could be the Indie Busted!
73% Poptastic!
Los Campesinos! – We Throw Parties, You Throw Knives (Watch – but studio version is much better)
Very cute chorus (although if you pay attention the lyrics are really quite disturbing), but the verses could do with more of the girl and less of the boy. Hopefully she’ll sack him soon. They’re from Wales (formed at Cardiff Uni – where I visited but decided against immediately when I found there were no CD shops) and they have an EP called Hold On Now Youngster and they are quite jolly but not excessively so. They are a bit like The Research, but they’ll need to write their own Lonely Hearts Still Beat The Same before they win my love. They should also leave Wichita Records, cos it is the home of the most rubbish indie bands.
62% Poptastic!
Tilly & the Wall – Rainbows In The Dark (Watch)
Sounding at a midpoint between The Pipettes and the Long Blondes, this is a very promising new single from this usually fairly ace but not mindblowing Nebraskan quintet. This track gets better and better as it goes along and also has a really fun video starring a singing sun wearing glasses, a dragon puppet with a very long tongue, and many other delights.
77% Poptastic!