A00-09 15. Foals - Antidotes

The Foals did not like the first master that producer Dave Sitek (of TV on the Radio) did of their debut album Antidotes, coming up with the quote that it "sounded like it was recorded in the Grand Canyon", and subsequently re-mixed it themselves. I would have been intrigued to hear what the Sitek version would have sounded like as the album has more than its fair share of reverb anyway. Another quote from singer/guitarist Yannis Philippakis gives a slightly different perspective: "All the sounds were there, and he added a depth. He messed with the spaces around the sounds so there's this weird ambience on all the tracks." Maybe it was more the case that they liked what he did but wanted it to sound like their own work and not have the trademark stamp of the producer too much.

Where Sitek's influence is obvious is on the appearance of the Antibalas Afrobeat Orchestra, who have also played on TV on the radio records. It is interesting how the brass is used; normally as an extra instrument in the more intense parts of the songs, rather than any attempt.

The guitar playing on the album is unusual, which is a good thing. There are two guitarists in the band Philippakis and Jimmy Smith, but they don't play a single chord between them on the whole album. It is all single notes, normally played very high up on the fretboard, with a rhythmic jagged feel.

Philippakis's vocals are a bit yelpy, which fits well with the fractured  nature of the music, and it is quite hard to make out what he is actually singing most of the time, which is never a bad thing.

The band cite techno as an influence on their sound and while they use conventional instruments, the music has techno like dynamics, in that it often eschews conventional structure and has climaxes and comes downs instead.

Much was made at the time of release about the omission of early singles Hummer and Mathletics ( the title of which presumably resulted in their being labeled Math Rock). It says something of the quality fof the songs replacing them, that they aren't really missed.

Recommended Track: Cassius

A00-09 16. Radio 4 - Gotham

To my English ears calling your band Radio 4 would tend to indicate an appreciation on the BBC talk and news radio Station. As the title of their second album, Gotham!, would suggest Radio 4 are from New York and would therefore make no such associations. If you actually listen to Radio 4's dance-punk soune then it would suggest that Gang Of Four was an influence, both musically and name-wise. It turns out that they are named after a track from another British post-punk band, Public Image Ltd.'s second album.

The lyrical content of the album makes it very clear that the band are from New York and there is a celebration of their city.  Recorded, as it was, not long after 9/11, this is understandable. It is pretty political, but possibly in a slightly naive way. Fellow New Yorkers, DFA, produce the album. James Murphy of DFA and LCD Soundsystem even provides vocals on Speaking In Codes.

It is possibly a bit of a derivative album, but no music these days is entirely original. What does matter, though, is that it is an entertaining album, which it is.

Recommended Track: Calling All Enthusiasts

A00-09 17. Longcut - A Call and Response

Mention the idea of singing drummers and one of the first thought that comes to mind is Phil Collins stepping out from behind the kit to moan about his ex-wife or the Lennon and McCartney throwing one of their cast-offs in the direction of Ringo Starr. So when the Longcut's singer left in 2002 leaving drummer Stuart Oglivie to take on vocal duties expectations were probably not exactly high. In truth Oglivie is not much of a singer, it is all a but shouty and monotonous, but thankfully he does not do that much of it. Most of the beats are provided by drum machines, so Oglivie sings for a bit then goes behind his kit to add organic drums to the electronic or stays out front playing keyboards. Meanwhile the rest of the band build up the tension with repeated riffs. The songs are all pretty long and defy conventional verse-chorus-verse-chorus structure. It is more like long intro-verse-instrumental break-chorus-long outro.

It is not just the songs that are epic. It is the titles too. A Last Act Of Desperate Men or Gravity in Crisis anybody?

The Longcut are from Manchester and echoes of such bands as Joy Division, The Stone Roses and Happy Mondays can be heard in their music. It is not really what you would call a pop album. It is intense and can be quite hard to digest, but there are enough bands making pop songs, so it is good that some try for something more ambitious.

Recommended Track: Transition

A00-09 18. The Futureheads - The Futureheads

So if you were an A+R man wanting to launch a trendy band in the middle of the last decade probably the best way to do it would have been to play post-punk. Maybe get Andy Gill of the Gang of Four to produce some of the songs and throw in a quirky Kate Bush cover. If you were to ask the Futureheads about this their response would probably be the refrain from Le Garage the lead track on their eponymous debut album:

BULL-SHIT! BULL-SHIT! BULL-SHIT!

You do all that but you also sing defiantly in your native North East accent. Throw in off the wall song structures and some well structured vocal harmonies. In fact the best the thing about the Futureheads would be their vocals. They even occasionally go as far a cappella, for eaxmple on The Danger Of The Water.

The drumming is ferocious and the guitars are all stop start (what I believe is described in the music press as 'angular'). The song are all pretty quick (15 tracks inside 37 minutes) and but for the harmonies it could bring to mind the first Wire Album.

It is all pretty high energy stuff and is pretty clever stuff if you want to pay attention to all the subtleties or just a lot of fun if you can't be bothered to dig too deep.

Recommended track: Carnival Kids

A00-09 19. Yeasayer - All Hour Cymbals

Yeasayer could be just another one in a long line of Middle Eastern-psych-snap-gospel bands, but they avoid falling into this well-worn trap by seemingly inhabiting a different universe from all other bands. A universe where sitars, synths, bongos, sequencers, fretless bass, choir harmonies all somehow make sense when combined together. There seems to be some kind of religious fervour about their music, like it is the gospel music of the religion of a post-apocalyptic future; it must be all the chanting.

I don't like the term "World Music" because it implies that all music apart from that sung in English and originating from somewhere outside of Britain or the United States is somehow all the same and can be considered as one genre. Also, it begs the question if this is world music then where do you come from? Somewhere other than the world? Anyway, that aside, Yeasayer do take a diverse range of influences from traditional cultures and combine that with modern instruments, like synths and sequencers. It should not work but somehow it does.

Most of the time it is not that easy to work out what guitarist/vocalist Anand Wilde is on about and quite often the vocals are multi-tracked and sampled all over the place. As discussed in previous reviews, this is a good thing.

So even if the concept does not sound your thing, give it a try, you may like it.

Recommended track: 2080, Sunrise or Wait For The Summer.

A00-09 20. The Natonal - Boxer

The National are two pairs of brothers: Aaron and Bryce Dessner and Scott and Bryan Devendorf; and a singer called Matt Berninger. Berninger sings in a distinctive deep baritone and they band play melancholic ballads. Despite the singer's unique voice, which fits well with the chosen genre, the real star of the band is drummer Bryan Devendorf. I am not somebody who normally notices drumming, and I was not consciously aware of it during the first few listens, but much of the drumming is immensely complicated. It drives the band's songs beyond regular ballads to something more interesting. It actually seems a shame that there are a couple of tracks without any drums.

There are quite a lot of additional musicians playing on the album. The brass and string arrangements are an important part of the band's sound. In comparison with the drums and vocals the guitar and bass parts tend to fall into the background, but they help gel the band's sound together. Describing all the constituent parts does not do necessarily do justice to the overall impact of the album as a whole. There are no bad songs on the album. There is not a massive amount of diversity between the tracks, but they all fit together seamlessly.

Recommended Track: Mistaken For Strangers

A00-09 21. TV on the Radio - Dear Science

I don't like to think that easily influenced, but I basically bought TV On The Radio's fourth album Dear Science on the basis of lead single Halfway Home being used as a trailer for Channel 4 youth drama Skins.

I had seen TV On The Radio a few years earlier in their native Brooklyn and was not massively impressed. The band changed a lot in the mean time and arguably actually became a band. Previously they had just been a 'project' of multi-instrumentalist and producer Dave Sitek. On Dear Science, the band has expanded from Sitek, vocalist Tunde Adebimpe and vocalist/ guitarist Kyp Malone to also include a bass player and drummer. The music is more accessible than previously, but is still a mixing pot of diverse influences. The vocals are very soulfil. Although, to be honest, I struggle to differentiate between Adebimpe and Malone, but whoever is singing does not really matter it all sounds good. The real highlight, predictably is Sitek's production. There are so much going on and so many subtleties that it makes me wish I had a better stereo, so I can hear everything.

Recommended Track: Golden Age

A00-09 22. Interpol - Antics

Interpol are another band, like the Editors, who sound a bit like Joy Division. One of the reasons being that singer Paul Banks has a baritone voice similar to that of Ian Curtis. Also Joy Division bassist is an influence on Interpol bassist Carlos Dengler; they both play their bass very low - near knee level. Also the music and the lyrics are all a bit moody. Where the bands differ is that Interpol have two guitarists, meaning that there is more intricate guitar harmonisation.

The music second album Antics is actually a lot more upbeat than debut Turn On The Bright Lights and is a lot better for it. I think the difference mainly comes from the bass and drums and gives the album a vaguely dance feel. What has not really changed is Banks' lyrics. It is all a bit too gloomy and it is probably best to not think about the meaning and concentrate on the sound of his voice. It would probably be better if he sang in Hopelandic or Japanese.

Being a guitar geek I like the fact that Take You On A Cruise is quite possibly the only song I am aware of that features an e-bow duet. An e-bow is a small device that moves the strings by an electromagnetic field rather than hitting them. It is supposed to sound like a bow on the string. Daniel Kessler plays with an e-bow throughout most of the song and Paul Banks joins in towards the end. Also Carlos Dengler has his bass tuned to drop D, which is a technique commonly used by guitarists to make it easier to play power chords, but is not much use for bassists unless the rest of the band play in drop D, which Interpol don't. Apparently the reason is because Interpol write a lot of songs in the key of D and B minor.

Recommended Track: Take You On A Cruise - e-bow extravaganza

A00-09 23. LCD Soundystem - Sound Of Silver

LCD Soundsystem is really the work of one man, James Murphy, a DJ, producer and co-fonder of DFA Productions, a dance-punk label.

LCD Soundsystem's two best known tracks would probably be Daft Punk Is Playing In My House and North American Scum. Neither track really gives an impression of what the band's second album Sound of Silver is like. They are both slightly jokey, punchy songs that are a good choice as singles. However most of their songs are longer, more serious and are built from repeating elements that help build to a crescendo. In fact, before the release of Sound Of Silver produced a very long song called 45:33, which is actually slightly longer than 45:33. It was made in conjunction with Nike and was supposedly designed to accompany jogging. Part of 45:33 was turned into Someone Great on Sound of Silver.

Sound of Silver has only nine tracks, and the middle three tracks (Someone Great, All My Friends and Us V Them) are all amazing. On previous releases Murphy had decided not to go into the vocal booth with any pre-written lyrics for fear of Losing His Edge (to better-looking people with better ideas and more talent. And they're actually really, really nice). He has seemingly abandoned this idea on Sound Of Silver and it is better for it, as the lyrics are more meaningful than before.

As would be reasonable to expect from a producer, it is the sound of the record that really makes it. It has a lot more spacious, full bodied sound, compared with compressed sound of most dance music.

Recommended Track: Someone Great

A00-09 24. Cornelius - Point

Cornelius is a Japanese musician who makes sample based music. He came to prominence in 1997 with the release of Fantasma. It is the follow up Point that makes it into my chart not just because it came out in the right decade, but because I think it is a better album. Fantasma has probably too many bells and whistles and gives the impression that he it is trying too hard to be clever. Whereas Point has a more precise, restrained feel.

A lot of the samples used are organic. There are twittering birds and water samples, such as the bubbles on Drop. Also there are a lot of guitars (mainly acoustic) and drum samples. The samples are put together to give often a very rhythmic feel and there are lots of stereo panning effects where the instruments flick quickly from left to right. It is all very well done, but the songs themselves are strong enough not to sound like production tricks. When he does try to do something a bit different, such as the aggressive guitar work-out I Hate Hate, it stands out more than it would have on Fantasma.

The vocals are generally multi-tracked, and are almost all in Japanese, despite the English titles. Like with Sigur Rós, the fact that I like the fact that I can't understand the lyrics, because it means I focus on the sound of the vocals as another instrument rather than thinking about the meaning.

Recommended Track: Drop - features bubbles

A00-09 25. Brave Captain - Advertisements For Myself

Martin Carr was lead guitarist and songwriter in a band of Dinosaur Jr enthusiasts, called the Boo Radleys. They stared out fitting in with the shoegazing sound in the UK music scene at the time. Their sound became more eclectic and experimental, culminating in the sublime Giant Steps, the name being taken from an album by jazz legend John Coltrane. By the mid nineties the predominant sound in the UK music scene had shifted to Brit-Pop. The Boo Radleys got caught up in this with the popularity of their single Wake Up Boo! The album on which this track featured, Wake Up, made it to number one in the UK charts. The inevitable 'commercial suicide' album followed and in its way C'mon Kids is every bit as fantastic as Giant Steps. A further album, Kingsize, followed. In 1999 Martin Carr disbanded the Boo Radleys because he thought that they had lost their ability to surprise.

After the split Carr began making solo music as Brave Captain, the name being taken from a fIREHOSE song. Advertisements For Myself is Carr's third solo album and is probably not something that he could have produced with the Boo Radleys, whose experimentalism was contained within the format of a four piece rock band. As Brave Captain, Carr explores more electronic influences than with his former band. He also sings lead vocals, which he did not do in the Boo Radleys, despite writing the lyrics. It is a very eclectic album, but it does suffer a bit from the tracks generally falling into one of two categories: instrumental electronic efforts and more conventional songs with vocals and guitars.

Recommended Track: Down Between

A00-09 26. The Breeders - Title TK

Title TK (journalistic slang for "title to come") is a Breeders album, but it could just as easily be a Kim Deal solo album, as she is the only member of the band who recorded debut album Pod who also plays on this record. She wrote all but two of the songs and played all of the instruments on several of the tracks, apart from occasional help from her twin sister Kelley on extra vocals. The album was recorded over a long period of time, which partly explains why a full band was not present on all tracks.

Title TK came out nine years after their previous and most successful album Last Splash and sounds nothing like it. While Last splash was an effervescent bubbly record , Title TK is sparse and subdued. It makes little attempt to re-capture past glories, although it could be said to be similar to Pod. A lot of the credit for this subdued sound should probably go to producer Steve Albini, who would seem to be a strange choice as Kim Deal's former band, The Pixies, were famously unhappy with his production of their debut Surfer Rosa. For me, this was the first time that Albini's sparse production had actually ever made sense.

Typical of the album, would be the first track, Little Fury. It starts with a slow drum beat, then the Deal sister's near identical vocals come in (Kim first then Kelley), with an intimacy fragility that would have been unthinkable on Last Splash. It takes about a minute for the guitars to come in all raw and jagged. One guitar chugs away at chords and the other plays a simple lead riff at key points. So it continues, with a bass interlude here and cutting back just to the drums and vocals there, until the end of the track. Other tracks are more tempo, but all share the same lo-fi production values and give the impression that you are sat in the same garage as the band playing the song (even when Kim is doing everything herself).

Recommended Track: Little Fury

A00-09 27. Modest Mouse - Good News For People...

Good News For People Who Love Bad News is Modest Mouse's fourth album and their most commercially successful. According to more knowledgeable music critics than me, their earlier stuff is better, but seeing as I have not heard their earlier stuff I can really comment on that I just know that I like this album.

Apparently they also sound like the Pixies, which is true of very many indie acts. While many bands adopt the Pixies' quiet-LOUD-quiet-LOUD-quiet dynamic as appropriated by Nirvana, Modest Mouse, however, sound more like the weirder elements of the Pixies catalogue. Singer Isaac Brock goes has more of a yelp than Black Francis' scream, but they both have the same slightly off-meter delivery.

The band has the fairly standard two guitars, bass and drum set-up, but Brock also adds banjo and ukulele while guitarist Dann Gallucci adds keyboard, timpani, mellotron and glockenspiel. The Dirty Dozen Brass Band appear on three of the tracks. There is a pretty varied sound from ballads to rockier numbers.

Recommended Track: The View

A00-09 28. The Strokes - Is This It

The Strokes are on this list because the NME told me to. It is actually quite easy to be cynical about The Strokes because of all the hype about them at the start of the decade. It is not their fault if somebody influential in the British music media industry liked them or decided that they could use them to sell a lot of magazines. It is not their fault that they were offered an hour and a half headline slot at the Reading Festival despite only having one album's worth of material, a year after having to be promoted to the main stage because of their burgeoning popularity. It is not their fault that the gave rise to myriad 'The' bands. It is not their fault that there was so much analysis about them, right down to the missing question mark in their debut album's title. All of this would not have happened if they had not been a good band, just not as good as they were made out to be.

So to the actual music. It is melodic garage rock, the singer Julian Casablancas sounds like his voice has been processed in some way when he sings. The band are two guitarists and a bass player on most songs the guitar parts are pretty distinct. They are a pretty influential band being a major part of the garage rock revival at the start of last decade. I think this also paved the way for the post-punk revival later in the decade.

I also like their follow-up album Room On Fire. I don't think there is much to choose between them. Is This It gets on this chart for the impact it had at the time

Recommended Track: Hard To Explain

A00-09 29. The Go! Team - Thunder, Lightning, Strike

The Go! Team are a six piece band fronted by a charismatic female rapper called Ninja. However, their debut album Thunder, Lightning Strike was produced by songwriter Ian Parton in his parent's kitchen. Although I think some tracks were subsequently recorded with Ninja's vocals.

It uses a lot of samples in combination with some live instruments. So many samples, in fact, that there was a delay to the US release while the samples were cleared There is everything from Sonic Youth style guitar riffs, to cheerleader chants. All turned up as loud as possible, so it sounds like it was recorded on a cassette recorder on the central reservation of the M25. Not really the best album to take to Currys.digital if you want to test out the Hi-Fi system.

It may not be one for the beard-stroking music purist; it is as much fun and excitement as you can reasonably expect to pack into thirty-five minutes. The second album is more of a full band effort, which means fewer samples, less eclecticism and less good. Although the bonus disk does feature a version of Sonic Youth's Bull in The Heather, which is one of my favourite covers ever.

Recommended Track: Huddle Formation

A00-09 30. Six By Seven - The Closer You Get

I was born in Nottingham and lived in a village to the south of the city for four and a half years before moving to London, and as such retain an affinity for the city. Nottingham does not have the greatest music pedigree, but I think the best band to come from the city is Six By Seven, although admittedly the only other band I can think of from the jewel of the East Midlands is the Tindersticks.

If you listen to the first two tracks on The Closer You Get, the brilliantly named Eat Junk Become Junk and Sawn Off Metallica T-Shirt, you would be forgiven for thinking that Six By Seven are a metal band. This turns out not to be the case. What they do a lot is repeat particular riffs until they are ingrained into the mind, building up to crescendos on the way. There is a lot of guitar, but also keyboards, at a couple of points during the album I am even slightly reminded of Josh Wink's Higher State Of Conciousness.

What I also like about this album in particular is the nostalgic feeling I get when they make references to Nottingham. So, if Midland Main Line, Forest Fields and Slab Square mean nothing to you, then you probably won't have the same feelings about this album as I do, but then it is my chart...

Recommended Track: My Life Is An Accident

A00-09 31. Clinic - Internal Wrangler

Clinic's debut full length studio album Internal Wrangler starts with some drums, mixed with bongos, then a sample of a bee comes in, then a keyboard, then some melodica and the bees become more irate, it builds to a crescendo, then everything calms down and the samples change from bees to waves. Two more standard ('standard' being a relative term) garage rock tracks follow, then it is Ludwig van Beethoven's "Moonlight" Piano Sonata No. 14 in C-sharp minor played on a highly overdriven organ in 4/4 time. With this amount of experimental intent on display, it is is fitting that the album cover is based on free jazz pioneer Ornette Coleman's album Ornette!

The band wear surgical masks when they play. There is a medical connection with the band being called Clinic, but it took me ages to work that out. This was also homage to San Franciscan bands Crime and The Residents. The masks take the emphasis off the specific members of the band and put it firmly on the music. The band play a lot of instruments of instruments between. The anonymity provided by the masks enforces the idea of four men playing whatever instruments are required for a particular track. Despite the anonymity, the real star of clinic is lead vocalist Ade Blackburn. Quite a few of Clinic's tracks are instrumentals, but those with vocals are unmistakably Clinic. He has quite a droney voice and it is quite hard to make out exactly what he is singing, but he uses it to convey such emotion. Sometimes it is used as a percussive element, for example on The Second Line. As well as vocals, keyboard and guitar he also plays melodica. Melodicas are not much used in rock music, but are more popular in styles such as dub reggae. It gives the music an eerie feel and contributes to Clinic's unique sound. As well as the melodica other members of the band play clarinet and flute.

Clinic toured with Radiohead in 2000 and are a big influence on Radoihead's creative re-invention around the time of Kid A.

So far so amazing Why is it not higher in the chart. There are thirteen tracks (fourteen according to the track listing, but track 13 is four seconds of silence, as the band are superstitious) but the total length of album is just over half an hour. It seems that the many ideas that Clinic put forward have not been explored as fully as they might. I also like the follow up album, Walking With Thee, which is more fully formed, but not quite as fresh and brimming with ideas as Internal Wrangler.

Recommended Track: Voodoo Wop - Bee and wave samples

A00-09 32. Young Knives - Voices of Animals and Men

The Young Knives are two brothers and a drummer who wear tweed and play post-punk. They even got Andy Gill of Gang of Four to produce their album. At the time the album came out post punk revival was a popular genre with bands like the Futureheads. In fact the particular brand of post-punk that the Young Knives play is not the funky stuff of the Gang of Four, but more the provincial overtly English-ness of XTC.

As with the Futureheads, there are a lot of vocal harmonies courtesy of the Dartnell brothers. Lead vocalist Henry Dartnell, does enjoy a high pitched yelp which gives the band a very distinctive sound. As well as vocals Henry Dartnell is an accomplished guitarist and the band are full sounding for a three-piece. Henry's brother whose given name is Thomas now goes by 'House Of Lords' because he is big and all decisions have to go through him.

A deep vein of humour runs through the album. Often on supposedly funny albums the jokes wear thin very quickly, but in this case the stand up to repeated listens, probably because of the quality of the music backing it.

The main criticism of the album would be that while they try to add variety to the album by interspersing the up-tempo songs with slower numbers, the slow songs are not really as good as the faster ones.

Recommended Track: Weekends and Bleak Days

A00-09 33. The Editors - Back Room

Lets get the obvious easy comparison out of the way to start off with. I think that the Editors sound a bit like Joy Division. The reasons for this are the prominence of the bass in many of the songs, the similarity in vocals between Tom Smith and Ian Curtis, the general dark tone, and the use of synths, which brings to mind Closer era Joy Division. Everybody has influences and having Joy Division as an influence is no bad thing and they don't sound exactly like Joy Division. There is a greater sense of optimism. The music is generally more up-tempo and danceable and there is more going on guitar wise as on most tracks Smith plays rhythm and Chris Urbanowicz plays lead.

The Editors produced two further albums in the decade under consideration. There is a rule restricting the chart to one album per artist anyway. Their later albums, unsurprisingly have a more mature sound than their debut. Their third album In This Light And On This Evening has a much more synthesiser based sound than either of its predecessors. I prefer the debut because of its energy.

Recommended Track: Lights

A00-09 34. Sleepy Jackson - Lovers

Lending further credibility to the theory that this chart has been devised with a geographical bent (it is not true, but hard to disprove) we remain in the Antipodes with The Sleepy Jackson. Although these particular band of Australians seems to have a fascination with the United States as this album has a distinctly Country feel. That would not be the only influence as there are also hints of psychadelia; the band are often compared with the Flaming Lips, although this may have something to do with a similarity in vocal styles as much as musical similarities.

The Sleepy Jackson are dominated by singer/guitarist Luke Steele, who has more recently been involved with electronic duo, Empire Of The Sun, the album retains a band feel. This is probably due to the fact that other members of the band contribute backing vocals. When the band play live they don't sound very much like they do on record. They tend to have a much rockier style and lose a lot of the album's subtulties.

Recommended Track: Come To This

A00-09 35. Ladyhawke - Ladyhawke

Enough of Putney and its Elliott School. I have had it with that place. Instead the chart head to the other side of the world to feature Ladyhawke's eponymous debut album.

To be honest, I am struggling to explain why I like this album so much. It has a distinctly eighties feel, which does not always appeal to me. I suppose it must just be the quality of the songs. It is an unashamed pop album, full of hooks and big choruses.

The other reason would probably be the talent of the woman herself. While other musicians do appear on the album a lot of the work is done by Ladyhawke (Pip Brown) herself. She does vocals, bass, electric and acoustic guitars, drums, keyboards and synthesizers.

For me the stand-out track would be the single Paris is Burning with a chorus approximately the width of the Champs-Élysées and a great scratchy guitar line running most of the way through.

Recommended Track: Paris is Burning

A00-09 36. The Maccabees - Wall Of Arms

Remaining in the musical centre of the universe Putney, the next album in the chart is Wall of Arms by the Maccabees. They also went to Elliott School. This geographical grouping was not planned it was just how it worked out. The band are actually currently based in Brighton anyway.

I had previously had the impression that the Maccabees were just another indie band and that is true to a certain extent. This album features the indie hallmarks of jangly guitars and too tight jeans. However, on this, their second release, there is an extra sense of darkness. Not super dark, just as saccharine coated as some similar artists. The track, No Kind Words, available as a free download prior to the release of the album being a statement of intent.

Also in terms of instrumentation, the band have progressed since their first album with Singer Orlando Weeks occasionally adding a third guitar alongside the White brothers. There is a brass section added to the mix on many of the tracks. Credit for this, and for allowing the band the confidence to go off at unexpected tangents, must go to producer Markus Dravs, who has worked with Arcade Fire amongst others.

In terms of lyrics, Weeks has improved considerably since the debut album. Admittedly the bar had not been set particularly high by an album including a track called Toothpaste Kisses and a song about a swimming pool. However, on this release the lyrics are genuinely emotive.

Recommended Track: No Kind Words

A00-09 37. The XX - XX

Putney is obviously the place to be as two consecutive acts on my chart come from the mean streets of South West London. In fact they even went to the same school as Hot Chip. Like Hot Chip the band has two vocalists, Oliver Sim and Romy Madley-Croft. Both sing on all tracks apart from the instrumental Intro. The hushed male female vocal combination lends a certain sexual tension to songs. Probably individually they would not be the greatest vocalists, but they fit well together. Sim's voice in particular reminds me of 3D of Massive Attack.

At the time of recording the album, the band was a four piece, but keyboardist/guitarist Baria Qureshi has since departed, citing exhaustion. Sim plays bass and Madley-Croft plays guitar, but the real heart of the band is producer and beat master, Jamie Smith. Much has been made of the fact that the band were just 20 years of age when making the album, but the fact that the producer is the same age is all the more remarkable.

Music technology geeks will be interested to learn that Smith uses an Akai MPC . These instruments are popular in Hip-Hop, which is an influence on the XX's sound. Seeing as the band don't have a conventional drummer, Smith is mainly involved in the production of beats. However the MPC has sampling, sequencing, storage and sound manipulation facilities, so it is a useful tool in music production.


The only slight criticism I would have of the XX music is that while it is moody and magnificent, there is not a great deal of variation over the course of the album so you have to be in the right mood for the moodiness.

Recommended Track: Heart Skipped a Beat

A00-09 38. Hot Chip - The Warning

Hot Chip will break your legs
Snap off your head
Hot Chip will put you down
Under the ground

Don't think you will, Alexis, not wearing those glasses anyway. Hot Chip's second album The Warning sees the R&B obsessed five piece getting all angry (Laid back, I'll give you laid back). The thing with Hot chip is that you are never entirely whether to take them seriously. Their decidedly geeky appearance does not sit easily with their R&B influences, but really their influences are many and diverse and just boil down to what can be done some vintage synths and drum machines, although lots of live percussion was used in the recording of the album.

Although Hot Chip are a five piece, the core of the band are Alexis Taylor and Joe Goddard who wrote the music, produced the album and sang the songs. Their vocals give good contrast. Taylor sings in a kind of falsetto, whereas Goddard's voice is much deeper. The majority of vocals are actually handled by Taylor, but it is pretty multi-layered.

The best known track on the Warning would be Over and Over, if only for its use on the BBC's Culture Show. Despite the anger it is often in their more reflective moments that Hot Chip are at their best, for example on Look After Me.

No review of Hot Chip would be complete without a mention of New Order. So, yeah, they sound a bit like New Order. Consider yourself warned.

Recommended Track: Over and Over or Look After Me, depending on how angry you feel

A00-09 39. Bat For Lashes - Fur And Gold

Bat For Lashes is the stage name of singer and multi-instrumentalist Natasha Khan. Her music is very theatrical, full of characters, stories, myths, legends, magic - that kind of stuff. Definitely not of the mundane really world. Obviously this is normally something best avoided in a musical context, but she manages to avoid the taint of prog-rock by the sheer quality of the music. The lyrical ambition is matched by the instrumentation. There are plenty of unusual instruments such as Harpsichords, Authoharp and various percussion instruments. Much of this is played by Natasha herself, although she does have a backing band when she plays live. It is all very well thought out and the production is very good. As mentioned before, many percussion instruments are used and combined with programming this gives it all a very rhythmic feel.

She has produced two albums Fur and Gold and Two Suns. I don't think there is a lot to choose between them. I personally prefer Fur and Gold, as it does not end with a Scott Walker collaboration.

Recommended Track: What's a Girl To Do?

A00-09 40. Sigur Rós - ()

If you have watched television in the last eight or so years, particularly if something 'euphoric' has happened, like somebody has made it through boot camp into the live show, you will probably have heard Untitled 3 by Sigur Rós. It is the one that builds up, builds up, builds up, builds up, builds up again and has a bit of a comedown at the end. Although they normally don't bother with the comedown the y play it on radio, as it does not fit with the general euphoria they are trying to convey.

Untitled 3 is available on the album (), which contains seven other songs in a similar vein, but not quite as good, none of which have titles. Untitled 3 does not contain any lyrics, but most of the others do. Sigur Rós are from Iceland, so you might expect them to sing in Icelandic, which would be difficult. They actually sing in Vonlenska, also known as Hopelandic, which is even more difficult to understand as it is a made up language loosely based on Icelandic. The idea being that the listener applies their own interpretation to the lyrics. Admittedly this is a bit pretentious (like not giving your songs titles). I actually think this is a really good thing as I like good lyrics, but find that bad lyrics can really spoil a song. So what you have is a vocals as instrument situation where the singing is used a vehicle to convey emotion.

I actually feel like I should like () more than I actually do. It is a very atmospheric album and probably sounds amazing in their native Iceland. I think the songs are great, but they are a bit too long and there are only eight on the album. If I had produced the album, I would have told them that I really like the eight songs they have written, but speed them up a bit and where are the other four they need for an album. Also the quiet bits don't make it a great album to listen to on your iPod on the bus. More one for home (or Iceland, or getting through boot camp)).

Recommended Track: Untitled 3 - Boot camp euphoria.