ANBAD has gone In The City CRAZY, and for the next week or so until the festival/conference/new band orgy begins, bands appearing at the festival will be featured. This is a Good Thing, because while the usual suspects will be getting the attention in the press, there will be some genuinely excellent and genuinely unknown bands jostling for attention there. Though, frankly, today’s probably isn’t one of the latter.

DRUGS – Love Lust (darkmixx) by ITCManchester

Hype is my new band Kryptonite. Its presence instantly renders any new band tainted by it wholly unpalatable and saps my will to live. This is my snobbish quirk, yes, but one that drove me to create ANBAD, which is either a good or bad thing, dependent on your point of view.

D/R/U/G/S have been hyped beyond the stars by some people, and are almost a tick-box example of the kind of band I would normally dodge with the same vehemence as Bono would avoid a room without mirrors.

Punctuated name – tick. Remix-friendly laptop-twiddlers – tick. Mysterious online profile (see photo) – tick. And most agonisingly of all – the hype.

And yet here is a good band who justifies high praise: a band who are making music so warm and – dare I say it – thoughtful that they almost demand that you mentally prepare the statement, ‘But of course, I liked them before they were famous’.

D/R/U/G/S don’t shirk responsibility even whilst bobbing along on the deceptive buoyancy of their own hype. They are ploughing on, creating new music that sticks to the original plan – have a good time together, bathing in the chaos of their own music. Excellent.

And all that without mentioning a certain hype-referencing Public Enemy song. Small victories.

myspace.com/drugsdogoodthings

D/R/U/G/S are playing on Wednesday night at In The City // More Info + Tickets