Mixed feelings abound in ANBAD Towers when well-loved bands reform, especially when they throw together a new song or two to ‘celebrate’ (i.e. “market”) the occasion.

Whether these bands deserve one more day in the sun (i.e. “clearing that huge tax bill”) or not is kind of moot: it’s a shame that music-goers have been trained to hand over large wedges of cash in return for a once-in-a-lifetime billing by their teenage years’ favourite band, when they could be shuffling into tiny venues to see amazing new bands of tomorrow.

However, let’s not get too testy – Blur’s new song is actually as nice as you’d expect, and whilst Alex James celebrates getting one over his younger self, here’s some actually new bands to counterbalance proceedings:

FIRST: Kero Kero Bonito deserve endless kudos for writing a song about Laser Quest, the game of choice for over-aggressive sci-fi-geeked teens the world over.

It’s actually deeply pleasing to hear a band sporting such a retro-now electro sound with a sense of humour, and here is a song that is, at least, impossible to hate.

SECOND: Manchester’s Naymedici plough a bold furrow by choosing the boisterous drinking song as a starting point for their sound, but hey: it works, flat caps or none – so here’s a song to revel in after a skinful at your local.

THIRD: I have lingering suspicions that the bulk of cool songs at the moment are compiled from the same bank of copyright/royalty-free samples, so it’s thrilling to hear a band making their own rhythmic samples from camera shutter-release noises and other odd sources, just as the excellently monikered Curious Quail have done.

FOURTH: Balue‘s Worry Toobs begs one main question: what are ’Worry Toobs’? Sounds a bit pornographic to me, but who are we to ask such impertinent questions when the song itself is a summery, blissed-out stream of consciousness?