>As is customary, nay, legally required, of all music writers, after spending the whole year complaining of bands’ artistic freedom being compromised by blithe pigeon-holing and categorisation, right at the end of it, they join in by listing, categorising and ordering then by rank. So, not wanting to miss out on this playground popularity contest, next week will feature the A New Band A Day Christmas List-stravaganza! Lists! Rankings! Hopeless Justification of both! Hooray!

Until then, have one more new band, before the maelstrom of Christmas/New Year takes over. Plastiq Passion are from New York, and just as Sweden is the Mothership of jangly guitar pop, so NYC is the epicentre of guitar bands with urgency and guile. Their songs are direct and slightly anarchic. You’d want to be best friends with them, whilst being careful never give them your address.

Taut, driving, passive-aggressive rock song I Can’t Wait is waiting for you in a dark corner, fingering a pool ball in a sock – you know, just in case. It’s the sound of a band who are just about to burst out in a shock of noise and light, but don’t because they want to keep you on your toes.

I Said is pleading and almost gentle, though the edge of danger is still there. Plastiq Passion‘s songs are simple, thrusting and sexy, somehow. Plastiq Passion can join the list of bands that make their British counterparts feel a bit inadequate, because they can’t carry off cool quite so effortlessly, and end up looking like try-hard crazies. (Hello, again, to Jonny Borrell from Razorlight). A nice, look-over-your-shoulder way to end the year. Listen to them here!

Oh, and a monster thanks to everyone who’s emailed in wishing ANBAD and team a Happy Christmas! If you’d like to give us a Christmas present, why not recommend us to friends who’d like our unique combination of new bands and mangled metaphors? We’d be ever so grateful, and not the fake kind of grateful either, like when your crazy aunt gives you an awful item of clothing for the 15th year running.

PS - STILL not done your Christmas shopping? In a barely-suppressed frenzy of gift-less worry? Recession biting hard? Why not give the gift of shambolic writing, pun-obsession and ace new bands in the form of the ANBAD eBook? Perfect for whiling away those post-Christmas food-rammed days!