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
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