>The weekend already! It’s been a weird week on A New Band A Day. Coherency is low on the ANBAD agenda at the best of times, but this week we’ve been all over the shop like Amy Winehouse on DisneyLand Paris’s new ride, Journey to the Centre of Crack Mountain.

We’ve romped between super lo-fi tinkling with Magpied and the sleepy bleeps of oMMM, via the rollicking insanity of the Velvet Orchestra and the jaunty jangles of Buen Chico. So in some ways, Today’s New Band, The Joy Formidable, is a bit like the conclusion at the end of a high-school essay, albeit an essay that begins, “What is a New Band? The dictionary definition of a New Band is…”.

That is to say, The Joy Formidable are tinkling, sleepy, rollicking and jangly all at once. This is a Very Good Thing, and can be plainly heard for yourself on their track Cradle, a driving pounder of a song, which, with its “Woo-woo-woo” male/female vocals, sounds, frankly, a bit like what My Bloody Valentine would sound like without quite so many layers of fuzz. Austere punches its way forward bluntly but delicately, leaving you sure of their intent – to RAWK, but in a measured way, slightly reminiscent of Yeah Yeah Yeahs in ‘noise’ mode.

I usually wouldn’t compare bands to others – it’s mainly unhelpful – but look, I’ve just done it twice. Maybe it’s because The Joy Formidable are really good, maybe it’s because I’m feeling lazy. I hope it’s the former. Even more thrillingly, all their songs are FREE! to download at their MySpace page, and their’s even a remix by old friend of ANBAD, Totally Enormous Extinct Dinosaurs! What more could you ask for, really? Listen to their great stuff NOW, here!