Big in 2007? The bands

There are a whole bunch of bands I could have featured here, but I’ll keep it as brief as I can for now. Here are some. There are many more. Which will no doubt be featured over the course of the next month or so.

Lucky Soul


I first heard of these guys back in March got their ace single My Brittle Heart/Give Me Love, and saw them at the Old Blue Last. Then I mostly ignored them for the rest of the year, stopping only briefly to download their second single Lips Are Unhappy. I’m not really sure why, because their brand of indie pop, with a sparkly 60s girl group twist, is quite wonderful. And they’re good live too, with lovely chanteuse Ali Howard very much in the spotlight. Anyway, I hope to rectify that this year. They’ve been recording, so there should be an album on its way, and there will hopefully be plenty of opportunities to see them over the next few months.

Download: Lucky Soul - My Brittle Heart
Download: Lucky Soul - Lips Are Unhappy

Read More: Lucky Soul interview at The Torture Garden
Watch: Meet Lucky Soul round their Greenwich 'hood, My Brittle Heart live at their NYE gig
Buy: Their new EP, Ain’t Ever Been Cool, out on 16 January
See them live: 24 February at the Luminaire

The Aliens

The Aliens are more than half of the original Beta Band line-up, back together exploring familiar territories to those left when the Betas split, albeit with a slightly spacier, more psychedelic thing going on. In former Lone Pigeon Gordon Anderson, they’ve got an energetic frontman, and songs that are poppy enough to maybe see them achieve something which always eluded their former band – mainstream success. ITheir debut album Astronomy for Dogs is out in March. Ironically, they’re back on old label Regal, which they blamed in the past for many of their troubles. Let’s hope it works out well this time.

Download: The Aliens – Happy Song
Download: The Aliens - Only Waiting

Read more: I saw them in September.
Watch: Happy Song video (East London-tastic!)
Buy: Alienoid Starmonica and Happy Song
See them live: 8 February at The Scala. Maybe a warm-up show in Scotland before this.

Fields


The release of their debut album this year should see Fields building on their singles and cracking live shows last year. Some have called them shoegazers, which is sort of right, but they’re basically just good old-fashioned noisy indie guitar pop, with lovely melodies and girl-boy vocal harmonies. With the likes of Songs for the Fields and Brittle Sticks they have solid gold indie-pop anthems, and the bonus is - they're even better live. Catch them in the small venues while you can.

Download: Fields - Brittle Sticks
Download: Fields - Heretic

Read more: A previous gig review of mine, Blog Party writes a bit about them
Watch: Song for the Fields video, Brittle Sticks video
Buy: Fields records from Rough Trade
See them live: Nothing on the old myspace at the moment. Hopefully soon.

iLiKETRAiNS


iLiKETRAiNS are a Leeds band that’s bound to annoy a lot of music writers in 2007 with that typography. But they should also excite a lot more people with their brand of dark and moody atmospheric moody atmospheric rock, full of swirling guitars and lyrics addressing arcane subjects such as Captain Scott's Antarctic expeditions, former chess champion Bobby Fischer and cutbacks to the British Rail network in the 1960s. Another band with a uniform of their own, their vintage British Rail jackets seem to be not just a reference to their name, but a dedication to certain specialist interests in the band. Their live show comes with old-school projections and other oddities. But it's not just gimmicks. The music can stand up for itself, and hopefully signing to Beggars Banquet can see them introduced to a wider audience.

Download: iLiKETRAiNS - Terra Nova
Download: iLiKETRAiNS - The Beeching Report

Read more: I saw them a couple of times last year
Watch: The Beeching Report video, Terra Nova video
Buy: debut EP Progress Reform
See them live: Leeds Cockpit 28 March, Camden Dingwalls 29 March

Los Campesinos!


It’s time for me to join the Los Campesinos! bandwagon. There have been a few other UK bloggers giving props to this Cardiff band over the past year, and I can’t believe I only got round to listening to them earlier this week. All it took was to listen to You! Me! Dancing! And I was instently hooked. Just like AFoR says, it's "just sheer joy from start to finish, it’s six and a half minute runtime actually feeling like half that." It's so true. And it’s not just the bloggers who have been taking notice. They’ve been signed by Wichita records, with new stuff due this year. Looking forward to hearing what’s in store.

Download: Los Campesinos! - You! Me! Dancing!
Download: Los Campesinos! - Sweet Dreams Sweet Cheeks

Read more: Nothing But Green Lights gets in ahead of the pack
Watch: Short live clip
Buy: No releases yet, but download tunes from their myspace
See them live: The Spitz on 5 March (and 4 other dates before then across the country)

I Was a Cub Scout


IWACS consists of two Nottingham 17-year-olds William Bowerman and Todd Marriot who put out a cracking single Pink Squares / Teenage Skin in November, and if this is anything to go by, they're definitely two guys to look out for this year. Steve Lamaq digs them apparently, but so do about 5000 other people on their myspace, no doubt impressed by their keyboard-tastic melodic electronic indie music.

Download: I Was a Cub Scout - Pink Squares
Download: I Was a Cub Scout - Teenage Skin

Read more: Feature on Nothing But Green Lights
Watch: Pink Squares video
Buy: Pink Squares single
See them live: Just about anywhere in the UK during March