So it’s finally happened: the snake has eaten itself, and bands are now citing ANBAD’s old quasi-nemesis Wu Lyf as inspiration.

There’s nothing wrong with this of course, as long as the resulting music is not a direct copy of Wu Lyf – a band who, after acres of ludicrous hype, turned out to be weirdly less than the sum of their carefully-cribbed parts.

So, godspeed, Lion The Weak, the bold band in question. There is much more to this band than facile Wu Lyf comparisons might suggest: nuance, craft and litheness are all found in Midnight.

Midnight might be shaped like you’d expect – slow start, big finish – but it takes a route from A to B that is genuinely pleasing, affecting and worthwhile.

Wu Lyf’s huge failing was that, after a cleverly-won barrage of hype, their songs were just not interesting enough: the album was one-speed and had far too few ideas to make it a worthwhile listen.

I would carefully suggest that Lion The Weak have already achieved something Wu Lyf haven’t: variety of sound and ideas a-plenty. Ones to watch.

MORE: soundcloud.com/liontheweak