>Frankly, it was a minor miracle that any new bands got written about during June. A New Band A Day towers was massively preoccupied with Euro 2008, and thus was very busy with the important tasks of watching football all day, drinking beer to accompany the football and filling in the wallchart so that we would know exactly how hard France were tanking.

Still, confounding expectations is always fun, and what actually happened was the most exciting month on A.N.B.A.D….. EVER! Great new bands slopped out of our bucket almost non-stop, and here’s a round up of the great and the good:

Q Without U were an early bright light, and we said this:

“Q Without U meld super-tuneful guitar rock with whizzy synths into punchy pop songs”

and we were right. Following soon after was the great ERRORS, and:

“ If we were mildly cretinous, we’d make a poor joke about how there is nothing erroneous about their music, because it’s fantastic.”

But we didn’t, ‘cos we’re dead clever, like. Then, during an ill-though-out “Roadtrip” gimmick, we got all excited about Envelopes, who are really, really ace, and from Sweden. Or Paris. we weren’t totally sure. But, we said that:

“Their fabulous song Sister In Love somehow straddles the late 80’s and early 90’s, whilst luckily missing Shoegaze altogether – no mean feat.”

And guess what, they almost were BAND OF THE MONTH, but were just pipped at the post by the mind-bogglingly good Paul Hawkins and Thee Awkward Silences. We raved like idiots at their song The Battle Is Over, gushing maniacally:

“Make no mistake, this is the best song you’ll have heard for a long, long time – since, frankly, All the Rage by the Royal We. If you only listen to one new song this week, it should be this one – it’s truly, brilliantly, wonderfully fantastic. Song of the year so far, easily.”

Mmmm, nice to see we kept our ‘calm-and-detached’ integrity there. So well done, Paul Hawkins et al, BAND OF THE MONTH. Anyway, check all of these bands out, because they’re the creme de la creme of a really good bunch. Bring on July!