A New Band A Day

Today's New Band - Voo

2008-08-20T10:26:00.002+01:00

Another Liverpool band? This is getting silly. A New Band A Day has been littered with them recently, with Indica Ritual and My Amiga most recently using all their Scouse powers of persuasion on us. And look, here comes another one, with stereotypically jaunty tunes, and melodies coming out of their eyeballs.

When will these bands learn that if you want to be a rock star these days, it's not about having good songs, but about being photographed falling out of nightclubs, getting shabby on crack and slinging out a half-hearted Boomtown Rats sound-a-like album every 18 months? Some people just don't get it.

So, Today's New Band, Voo, steadfastly refuse to go all New-Rave or New-Gaze or New-[insert most recently dug-up old genre here] on us. Instead, with songs like Favourite Films, they demonstrate a keen ear for chipper, slightly anthemic pop-rock. Schnik Schnak Schnuk is an ace, building crunchy song that has not one, but two! of everyone's favourite rock tricks - the false ending and a "na-na-na-naa" bit. Acoustic For Sake of Space is either a title or a disclaimer, I'm not sure, but it definitely is light, delicate and mournfully enticing.

I get the feeling that Voo would sound even better live. They're touring soon, so keep 'em peeled. Listen to their songs here!

Today's New Band - Efterklang

2008-08-19T11:26:00.005+01:00

What room is there in today's ZAP-POW society for calmness? If you've not achieved exactly what you wanted by yesterday, you've failed. We rush forward frenetically, and the music we listen to while doing it reflects the ultra-economic, all-surface-no-feeling, instant-impact world around it. Stopping and reflecting is for WIMPS!

It turns out that this might not be so smart. Anxiety reigns supreme and worry is pushed at everyone, from everyone. Relaxing and observing might have benefits after all.

Today's New Band is the Danish septuplet Efterklang, and, if we're resorting to our old favourite, the Glib Comparison, they're somewhere between The Arcade Fire and Sigur Ros.

Towards the Bare Hill manages to blend choral voices, orchestral sounds and glitchy-clicking noises and make it work. It sounds like a male voice choir and a brass band let loose in a room full of hateful laptop "IDM" nerds and then setting about them, but recording the calming results. Step Aside takes a similar approach, squashing traditional, folk-y instruments into slightly warped shapes and scuffing in some non-intrusive electronic-y sounds. It's what standing on a hill in the middle of nowhere whilst watching the sunset and reflecting that, on balance, life is good would sound like.

Efterklang's music is all very serene, with the touch of the bizarre you'd expect from Northern European band, and also strangely, comfortingly, warm. Perhaps that's what's needed in a country as chilly as Denmark. Perhaps it's needed everywhere else too. Let their music envelop you here!

Today's New Band - The Very Most

2008-08-18T10:37:00.003+01:00

GIMMICKS! Here at A New Band A Day, we love them - to the point that we aren't afraid of using cheap, near-moronic devices ourselves in an attempt to crowbar some variety into our shallow lives. Anything like that in the world of rock 'n' pop is worth a go, I suppose, and if it works and raises the profile of a good band, all the better. So: Today's New Band, The Very Most, are giving away a free custom song with every purchase of their new album until the end of August. You tell them what you want the song to be about,and they'll write it.

This is a good deal, assuming you like their music. There's no point getting a song written about you and your life-long Roxette obsession if the band doing it is Extreme Noise Terror, for example. So here's the good news - The Very Most are a good band, with charm and panache to spare. Their songs are as sweet and carefully constructed as a child's model treehouse made of Lego. "Why don't you call the cops on me?" they sing, in the similarly-named song, which may or may not explore the banality of children's playground taunts.

Save the most or your reserves of pleasant surprise for their Custom Songs though - you might hook yourself a minor classic. MP3Hugger is quiet noise-rock, with a soft fuzz leeching through the indie-pop pleasantness just near the end. It's a delicate delight - a quick, gentle fog of guitar and slightly cryptic lyrics. It's on their MySpace page here. A whole album of songs written on the suggestions of fans and outsiders would be an interesting proposition. On the strength of MP3Hugger, I hope they consider it.

I suppose the only danger of a gimmick like that is that The Very Most might become 'that band that writes free songs about you' - but frankly, if it ropes in a few idiots who can't look past that and recognise a good band when one is poking them in the ear, then it's no loss. At very least, they'll sell more records and have more people hearing their lovely songs, and that's the most important thing. Good marketing is the new Rock 'n' Roll/Stand-Up Comedy/Black/Whatever. Hooray! Listen to their songs and getcha free song here!

Eyes - Today's New Band

2008-08-15T15:12:00.004+01:00

It's a truncated post today on A New Band A Day, due to the A.N.B.A.D. 'editorial team' travelling all over the place on a well-deserved* break, which will hopefully involve multiple BBQs on a beach. Though, as the aforementioned beach is on the north coast of Wales, it's more likely to be a weekend of staying inside to avoid the rain, drinking warm cans of lager whilst gazing longingly at the beach outside, and dying a bit inside.

So, cutting to the chase and letting the proverbial dog see the proverbial rabbit, perhaps Today's New Band, Eyes, are just the thing needed to have on in the background whilst all the raining and non-barbecuing is taking place. Well, no, they're not. Listening to Kim and Jessie by M83 over and over again would be the right thing to do. Eyes are far too fantastically sinister for that.

Whether lurching from sleaze-o-funk on The Time Between The Time, or making your skin crawl by sampling the sound of scissors snipping, or just recording a song as crazily-named as Tunnel of Hair, Eyes are uneasy, creepy but always fascinating. Listen to their troubled noise here!

A.N.B.A.D. will be back refreshed** as usual on Monday!

*but surprisingly exhausting
**hungover

Someone Still Loves You Boris Yeltsin - Today's New Band

2008-08-14T11:46:00.002+01:00

So after frothing at the mouth a bit yesterday over Band Of The Day Indica Ritual, here's hoping for something a little less mentalistic and more soothing today. And that's exactly what Today's New Band, Someone Still Loves You Boris Yeltsin, are. In many ways, Someone Still Loves You Boris Yeltsin are perfect A New Band A Day fodder - in so much that they fulfil all these precise and extensive A.N.B.A.D. criteria:

a) The band has great tunes; and, for bonus marks,
b) The band has needlessly complicated/amusing/pun-laden name.

Obviously a) is the most important parameter, but SSLYBY (much easier to type) don't disappoint on either count. Oregon Girl is one of those Byrds-y, 80's-Indie-y, Teenage Fanclub-y songs that sounds like it's a breeze to write, but isn't. It's a fantastic, fleet-footed dash of a song that touches all four corners of Jangly Summer Rock, and then goes around again on an excited lap of honour.

In fact, SSLYBY are so relentlessly upbeat that they make a song titled Think I Wanna Die sound like exactly the sort of song you'd want to listen to whilst driving a convertible down Highway 1 to Big Sur. Best of all might be the soaring Glue Girls, which is a happy, swift spin of fun.

SSLYBY are from a town called Springfield. Insert your own half-hearted Simpsons reference here. Then when you're done, listen to their super summer songs, right here!

Indica Ritual - Today's New Band

2008-08-13T12:07:00.004+01:00

I had one of those iPod mental tics this morning. You'll recognise the problem - wandering along, scrolling through the albums, but none of them that scram up the screen seem to be the one that's just right for that exact moment in time. This morning I knew that I needed a sound that was just so, something that was fast, hard and upbeat but that wasn't gabba or screamcore. Something like a cross between early-90's period Prodigy and, I dunno, The Fall. One of those kind of moods.

Funnily enough, I couldn't find any songs that fitted hitherto-yet untested combination of cranky Mancunian miserablism and mentalist bonkers-core aggro-noise. In a fit of idiocy, I picked the full 10-minute mix of So Much Love To Give by Thomas Bangalter & DJ Falcon. After 8 minutes, I realised that my infatuation with Thomas Bangalter perhaps doesn't stretch to a full 10 minutes of the same loop over and over again, however LOL! AWESOME! it sounds to start with.

It later occurred to me that what I actually wanted to listen to was Today's New Band, Indica Ritual. Their song Top Forty is all of these things: 1) Bonkers, 2) Super-duper funky, and 3) Sounds like a test version of the 1973 Tomorrow's World TV theme tune that was rejected for being too 'out there'. Mostly, though, it's a superbly alert, twitchy song that sounds confident and cocky. It's modern without being arch or knowingly ironic, taking the path of least resistance to the parts of your brain marked 'fun' and 'quirky'. Dad's Wristband nicks the ace crunchy guitar sound off the first half of David Bowie's Low and moulds it into a tasty, inventive instrumental. And surely Num Lock sounds more creative, more wild and more new than is plausible.

Indica Ritual are quite possibly the band you have been looking for, like, ages. They are actually brilliant, in every sense of the word. You must listen to them now, or your life will be that much poorer. Drown yourself, laughing, in their songs right here!

P.S. This is the second Liverpool band in a row on A.N.B.A.D. Could another accidental trilogy be the making? Tune in tomorrow to find out!

My Amiga - Today's New Band

2008-08-12T11:36:00.004+01:00

When I was a young 'un, before I bought a guitar and sat in my bedroom mangling Smiths songs and wondering if I could convince my parents to let me paint my bedroom walls black, i used to while hours away playing on my Sinclair ZX Spectrum. It had sticky rubber keys, 48k of memory and the games took five minutes to load off a C90 tape. It was my nerd-baby though, and I'm still proud that I completed Magicland Dizzy without losing a life. These halcyon days were tarnished a bit though, when my friend Dan got a Commodore Amiga for Christmas - a computer which made the Spectrum appear weak and feeble in comparison (which, of course, it was).

The Amiga was ace. I presume Today's New Band, My Amiga, harbour similarly nostalgic feelings about unwieldy, grey early-90's computers. They're from Liverpool and have that seemingly genetic Liverpudlian way with treble-tastic rock melodies. My Amiga are what the Famous Five would sound like if they formed a band on their days off from drinking lashings of Ginger Beer and solving suspiciously family-friendly crimes.

That is to say, My Amiga sound young and sprightly enough to make the inevitable A&R men at their gigs feel like fuddy-duddies with try-hard haircuts. Though to be fair, they're like that anyway. Thank Heavens for Little Victories is a surprisingly deft and floaty throwaway pop tinkle, with a shouty bit to prove that they're actually of drinking age. Untitled is a brisk and jangly pop fizz which explodes frenetically with youth, the sonic equivalent of a child trying to build the tallest lower of Lego possible, and then laughing manically when it falls over.

My Amiga are as fun as drawing the curtains on a sunny day and playing Sensible Soccer until teatime. Though you probably won't get wrist ache from the joystick. Unless you really like them. If you known what I mean. Listen to their songs here!

The Molotovs - Today's New Band

2008-08-11T11:22:00.002+01:00

Posturing and rock go hand-in-hand. This self-awareness often results in musical bombast partnered with hollow and blustering lyrics. After a while, some bands only seek to consolidate their public image, their music becoming a tick-box exercises in retreading the inevitable. It's partly this laziness that gives new bands an allure - music made by people who don't have personal masseurs (yet).

Today's New Band are The Molotovs, and their songs are thick with weary recognition of life's frustrations. They don't pose or worry about their appearance as they're too busy turning an anglepoise lamp onto themselves and delving inside their own neuroses. Flowers is a decidedly jaunty romp, with fiddly guitars and sax, though the lyrics lament - "I bought you some flowers, was that not enough? Paperback novels taught you to bluff." This conflict between big, brash and uplifting tunes and the mournful lyrics reoccurs in One Up On Me, which, whilst sporting a sprightly melody, is drenched in a sombre listlessness.

None of this means that their music is a Radiohead-in-their-most-dour-moments drag - The Molotovs' songs are an upbeat treat in many ways. Their vocal acknowledgement is just that not everything is a bowl of cherries, a rare display of pragmatism in rock, I suppose. And anyway, any band that is happy to propel as un-rock 'n' roll an instrument as the accordion to the forefront of their songs is all right by me. Their songs are right here!

Insecticide Lobotomy - Today's New Band

2008-08-08T11:29:00.001+01:00

When I recently went to see My Bloody Valentine, the general consensus as we staggered out of the venue, wiping the blood from our ears, was that it was entirely unlike any other gig we'd ever been to. There was no moshing, no singing along and no middle-aged men standing near the back 'appreciating' the band, just a room full of shell-shocked gawpers struggling to comprehend the savage softness of the noise that was comically blowing their hair backwards and flapping their collars around.

The other universally agreed point was that the experience of having carefully constructed white noise smash your ears into submission was actually intensely calming, and we left in a strangely Zen-like state which was only later voided by cut-price rum at the Star and Garter. Still, we were left in no doubt of the powerful enjoyment to be had from ridiculous noise. Thus, push cotton wool into your ears now and prepare to be overwhelmed by Today's New Band, Insecticide Lobotomy.

The sounds Josh from Insecticide Lobotomy makes are, in effect, just noise - but put together with such care and precision that it's ridiculously enjoyable. Rotor Disc is the sound of you being locked inside a steel drum and then someone using a blunt circular saw to buzz you out. Toxic Waste Drum grinds, growls and hisses and Late Night Practice is deeply dark and intimidating.

The only realistic course of action you can take listening to the music is to just let go and allow it to wash all over you - a tsunami of spasmodically repetitive high- and low-end fuzz boring into your brain and removing all thoughts except acknowledgement of the noise itself. It's a great, cathartic sluicing-out of of all other music from your mind, and whilst it's a tough listen at times, you'll miss it the second the sounds stop. Lovely, soft/hard, confusing stuff. Listen to it all here!

Mammoth Life - Today's New Band

2008-08-07T12:19:00.003+01:00

I have a friend who runs a sweetshop, called Kandy Pop, in Manchester. She spends all day selling all the best sweets from your childhood - Dolly Mixtures, Fried Eggs, Flying Saucers - that kind of thing. It's the cutest, most sugary place on the planet, and to compound the outright sweetness of the experience, she plays cute punky music all day long. If you manage to leave the shop without looking or feeling like you've been dunked in sucrose, then you, sir, are a stronger man than I.

So then - what about cuteness in music: as yummy and sweet as the pinkest, softest frosting on the world's sugariest cupcake, or as cloying and syrupy as the pinkest, softest frosting frosting on the sugariest cupcake? Today's New Band will polarise your opinion, because, frankly, they are as cute as a box full of buttons.

Mammoth Life are from Kansas in the USA. Their music isn't cute in a Japanese J-Pop way, or in a Bis way, but in a wholesome, twinkling, harmonising way that's a bit of a delight. Their song To Suffer For Passion is terminally bright and happy, the vocals droning and intertwining around what sounds a bit like what would happen if mandolins and violins were birds courting in mating season. It's quite close to being a twee-er Shiny Happy People, with a driving twang, a snappy hook and a melody that bounces around like a child on a spacehopper.

Bicycle Rider is even more fun - honking horns and ringing bells, buzzing and flitting from here to there, enjoying the feeling of luxuriating in happiness. Mammoth Life aren't just sugar-fiends on a mission to uplift though - there's a hint of melancholy if you listen hard enough, but why would you want to do that? Just grab a toffee apple and remember how much fun it was to just have fun. Listen to their great songs here!

Stars and Sons - Today's New Band

2008-08-06T11:01:00.002+01:00

I sometimes feel sorry for bands. Not that sorry, what with all the booze, girls and urinating up against the Alamo that they manage to find time to do, but a bit sorry all the same. It must be tough to keep touring material that you love, only to find that either a) it doesn't fit in with the majority's taste; or b) they come under pressure to make it more in fitting with the mainstream. Some bands then choose the "We-do-what-we-do-and-if-anyone-else-likes-it-that's-a-bonus" route and plough on regardless, whilst others let their record company lead them around like little piggies.

Other bands find themselves in that happy spot which pleases both camps. I think today's new band, Stars And Sons, might have accidentally achieved that difficult blend of individuality and appealability, and their songs bristle with excitement as a result.

Fights Already Fought is a strangely subdued song that also manages to be uptempo at the same time. It rattles and shakes softly, as if waiting to be released for a big reprise that never arrives. It's lovely, and dissolves into a quick, quasi-Spiritualized fuzz at the end. In The Ocean is almost its exact opposite, a fun romp that bounds forwards with all the enthusiasm and wonder of a new puppy. A pop-rock puppy that plays the piano, but a puppy nonetheless.

The feeling is with Stars and Sons is one of trying to break away from the norm, whilst still holding with one hand onto their base sound. Calling it 'quirky power pop' is just too obvious, but songs like Out of View could be made to sound incredibly mundane very easily by other bands, and yet Stars and Sons keep yanking it over into the leftfield a little bit, keeping everyone on their toes and happy. Good work, Stars and Sons. Listen to them here!

The Seedy Seeds - Today's New Band

2008-08-05T13:03:00.000+01:00

A New Band A Day is, apparently, indulging in Americanophilia at the moment. Over half of last week's super-duper new bands were from the USA (scroll down for more, pop-pickers!), and guess what - today there's another one cluttering up your ears with sweet sounds. An astute reader can draw a few conclusions from this.

Firstly, that A.N.B.A.D. band choices are entirely arbitrary and dependant on the whim of an easily bored writer, desperately looking for new things to listen to, whilst quietly sobbing. Secondly, A.N.B.A.D.'s geographic knowledge is severely limited - last time a single continent was 'explored' for music, it became the needlessly localised and gimmick-y "Northern European Road Trip" , whereas I couldn't identify Cincinnati on a map if a gun was held to my head and/or groin.

Huge apologies, then, to Today's New Band, The Seedy Seeds, who, predictably, are from Cincinnati. They're not content with writing unusually catchy bites of poppy indie, but even have the brass neck to squeeze a Kazoo solo into the joyous The Little Patton. Its zappy keyboard riff is so charming that the big broad chorus that follows it is a huge, lovely surprise. Earned Average Dance America, proudly flaunting its obtuse name, is a great him-her lyric over the hybrid banjo/Bontempi keyboard/accordion melody you've always been waiting for.

The Seedy Seeds are a great band, make no mistake. Their songs are cuter than Brad 'n' Angelina's twins and similarly simple and compact. Listen to their super songs here!

The TOP FIVE BANDS on A New Band A Day in July!

2008-08-04T15:35:00.004+01:00

Ah, July. You just whoooooshed by again in a blur of ice cream vans, newly-released schoolkids scuffing knees and day after day of relentless staring at the cloudy sky, screaming profanities at Baby Jesus, whilst waiting for a ray - just one single ray - of sunshine. Fortunately for those of you who are trapped in a similar tupperware-skied hell, July was a BRILLIANT! month on A New Band A Day, positively overflowing with bands so good that the Vitamin B your should have got from the sun was absorbed through your earholes instead. This is a medical fact.

So, in bold capital letters to stress it's importance, here's the TOP FIVE BANDS FROM JULY, in no particular order:

1) THIS MONTH'S BEST NEW BAND: The Pains of Being Pure At Heart

We said (glibly, natch): "It would be glib to say that if you like My Bloody Valentine and Jesus And Mary Chain, you'll love The Pains of Being Pure At Heart, but what the hell, it's true. If you love songs that drive forward with breathless abandon, all fuzzy, warm and colourful as a novelty Christmas sweater, then let yourself swoop head first into their songs."

2) Held By Hands

We said: " Porcelain-delicate songs, which build and build but still seem as light as air at the end, that are just perfect for easing gently into the coming week."
3) Candythief

We said: "Singer Diana's voice is the kind that would make you mix your metaphors and make you happy to crawl over hot broken glass, just to ask her to sing you to sleep at night. It's genuinely lovely - rich, dreamy and innocent enough to sound slightly dangerous."

4) AIDS Wolf

We said: "AIDS Wolf. That's right, AIDS Wolf. Just slosh it around your mouth slowly, then suck some bubbles of air through it and really savour the name. AIDS Wolf. AIDS Wolf."

5) The Bumblebees

We said: "The Bumblebees are tons of fun in the same way that making your own Lemonade is, and with the similar qualities of sweetness masking sharpness. Great!"

So there you go. Here comes another great month of new bands! Come on August, do your worst! By which I mean, 'best'.

Today's New Band - Transmittens

2008-08-01T11:39:00.002+01:00

Rock 'n' roll depends on surprises for its excitement. Just look at Coldplay and their plodding snooze-rock as an example of how predictability ruins any attempts of thrills. This is why Chris Martin, who is, remember, signed to a multi-million pound record deal with the multinational company EMI, writes Fair Trade slogans on his hand, and names his children after fruit. No-one seems to have pointed out to him that a simpler way of appearing 'edgy' would be to record some songs that don't sound as if they are explicitly written for car adverts.

Today's New Band, Transmittens, are all about surprises. Their name and music pops a big, happy, colourful clown's balloon in front of your face, and because of that it's easy to miss the glumly sung lyrics while you're happily running around in the subsequent glitterstorm. Transmittens are a little bit like a down-tempo Bis. Not only is their sound reminiscent of an acoustic, less Japan-o-frenzied approach, but their cuteness is similarly tweaked to a more introspective level. That's of course, assuming, that introspective cuteness is even possible.

Up All Night isn't a tale of rock 'n' roll excess at all, but a story of someone not being able to stay up, even thought they'd like to. In Our Dreams the nursery-school melody disguises lyrics as grim as "Why oh why did we come all this way to say goodbye? Because dreams don't come true - but we thought maybe they do," and Saturday Socks is so stupidly upbeat that the glum lyrics get missed because you'll be happily shaking your head like a 1960's Top of The Pops audience member.

So, as such, Transmittens are a lovely mind-melting band, coating gloomy lyrics with so much sugar, you'd be happy to gulp them down all day long. Listen to their great songs here!

Today's New Band - Pre

2008-07-31T13:18:00.001+01:00

Anyone fancy taking part in a small scientific experiment? Great. Follow these instructions to the letter, please. First, bash your head against the table in front of you. No, go on - it'll be fun, I promise. Assuming your initial attempt was slightly cautious, now do it again, but harder. And repeatedly. But not so much that you lose consciousness. That would be bad.

Finally, write down your findings. I'm guessing they might be along these lines: "Arrrrgh, confusion and pain." And this, of course, is the point of the experiment, as Today's New Band will have a similar, if less bloody effect. It's Pre, and they're the sound of a manic, sweaty moshpit storming the stage, hijacking the instruments and making NOISE. Listen to Dudefuk as an example: a sub-two minute guitar-spazz, replete with screamy yelping and thrashed instruments. The music screams, literally and otherwise, with a real base desire to go crazy, make a racket and get drunk, which, assuming I didn't miss any lyrics about them being Straight-Edge Christians, is probably true.

It's not tuneless wailing though - there's satisfying coherency to the distorted brain-drilling of And Prolapse, a song title that deserves to be elevated to the pantheon of greats that have previously featured on A.N.B.A.D. Ride Ride Ride, thankfully, is not a celebration of the eponymous Shoegaze bore-droners, but actually a 30-second buzz along the Autobahn to Hell.

So: Pre - like banging your head against a table, except enjoyable. Listen to their noize here!

Today's New Band - The Shot Heard Around The World

2008-07-30T11:51:00.002+01:00

Yesterday's yummy, super-twee (but not in an awful 'Tweecore' way) band, The Bumblebees, got me thinking. Actually, they got me a-hankerin' for some more jangly indie. This hankering intensified when I accidentally subjected myself to a video of the Ting Tings' awful song Shut Up and Let Me Go this morning. Its ultra-hip, consciously-ironic, sunglasses-indoor idiocy made me feel all hopeless. Where's the fun, or the the sense of reality in their super-slick, focus-group-defined sound?

So Today's New Band was always going to sound like their music was a) heartfelt, but not sincere; b) enjoyable, but nicely throwaway; and c) both happy and sad. So, say a big 'hello' to The Shot Heard Around the World, a band who fulfil those criteria and are as far removed from plastic generic stupidity as possible. They sound like people playing music for the fun of it. LOL!!!, as 'the kids' would say. They're also the second band from Brooklyn to feature on here in a week. Perhaps the A.N.B.A.D. staff are fishing for invites over there or something.

Make of that what you will, but one thing you will definitely recognise is a good indie tune when its tinny-guitar-twinkling winds its way into your brain, and the marvellous is, and does, just that. Rough, ready and engaging, its a song full of harmonies and a sprinking of the pleasantly inevitable glockenspiel that makes you feel happy to be alive. Evening Prayer is homely, warm and sorry - "I treated you less than right, girl that's true/But everything will turn out right... Nothing ever turns out right," lamenting and apologising.

Thinking about it, all of the bands this week so far have been very... human. Celebrate a theme as broad as humanity and listen to The Shot Heard Around the World's songs here!

Today's New Band - The Bumblebees

2008-07-29T10:44:00.003+01:00

There's something to be said for shy and fey voices in pop. Whilst Axl Rose et al growl, howl and grunt into the microphone, spraying the front row with saliva that is composed of 40% ALL MAN, 40% TESTOSTERONE and 20% COME BACKSTAGE AND BLOW ME, BABY, not everybody's songs benefit from such overt, Jack-Daniels-and-cigarettes, oversize-codpieced masculinity. Anything that goes some way to redressing the balance is welcome.

So, yup, Today's New Band, the lovely Bumblebees, are about as thrusting and masculine as Brian Sewell nibbling on cucumber sandwiches. This is A Very Good Thing, as evidenced by their Über-cute and happy songs that litter their Myspace page.

My Kaleidoscope starts and ends with the sugariest, yummiest, bloopy organ-line for, like, ages. This is the song that you'll play in your head this autumn when you look back fondly to summer and whizz through the memories of playing in the sea on holiday.

Fluffy Clouds Of Joy is a jerky, gentle and twee treat which metamorphoses into a children's TV show theme tune. It's also possibly begging for a post-post-post-ironic 'mash-up' with the Orb's Fluffy Little Clouds, which might cause the twin internet moron tribes of the Tweecore-ers and the Ironic Haircut-ers to either implode with rage (bad) or become best friends, ever (worse).

The Bumblebees are tons of fun in the same way that making your own Lemonade is, and with the similar qualities of sweetness masking sharpness. Great! Listen here, now, youngster!

Today's New Band - rs-232

2008-07-28T12:22:00.003+01:00

Electronic music often sounds soulless. Even though bands like Orbital managed to infuse something nearing humanity or nature into their music, the methods for producing electronic music ensure that its very nature is that of robotic precision. This isn't to say humanity or soulfulness is necessary in music, just that, as music is an output for expression, it's often tough to convey the feeling that fingers, thumbs and emotion have been involved in its creation.

Today's New Band, rs-232, is ice-cold and precise. There doesn't seem to be room for emotion or feeling in the music, but that's a good thing, as it would seem wildly out of place in music this clean. This is what music made by robots would sound like. Precise, concise, calculated, metallic and shimmering. Song Ping manages to bounce, jitter and, yes, ping, but with a subtle funkiness, if that isn't oxymoron-tastic.

However, it's not funk that you'd want to leap up and frug to - this isn't dancing music. What it does do is drag your mind away from wherever you are - you'll soon be wandering around rigid and unknown corridors in your mind. Pending Authorisation is creepy, sparse and stark, with quiet clicks, pulse-like beats and chilly metallic sweeps.

rs-232 's tunes may well turn out to be a sonic computer experiment. I half hope so. Listen to it all here, and try not to picture T-1000 from Terminator creeping up behind you as you listen.

Today's New Band - Padre Pio

2008-07-25T12:00:00.001+01:00

Bands have perceived connections with the past whether you, or they, want them or not. If yesterday's new band, Saboteur, reminded us of the 90's - if not in sound, at least in spirit - then Today's New Band, Padre Pio, simply reek of the 70's and 80's, sonically and, quite possibly, intellectually.

And if that has conjured up images of 70's wank-rock or 80's poodle-hair-rock, then a) wash your mind with bleach; no-one deserves to inflict that kind of mental torture to themselves, and b) instead think of when rock was a bit luxuriant, asexual and gleaming. Think Bowie and Lou Reed. Think of druggy, sharp-suited excess and eyeshadow on men. Think of a time when rock wasn't scruffy, but glistening with confidence.

Padre Pio's songs caress your eardrums with all of those things. Colour is a synthy glammy pop breeze, and Common Day is the great late 70's New York song you've never heard. It also, against all odds, achieves rock's most risky, difficult feat: a great Sax solo. Their songs are slightly pompous, eccentric and lithely predatory - all missing in most music now, and extremely welcome.

Surely Padre Pio aren't going to be gazing at the stars forever, wondering when they can strut their stuff in, I like to imagine, delightfully-cut suits. A band this swooning and sexy has to, and deserves to, end up foppishly jostling with the big boys. Brill. Listen to them here!

P.S. As a side note, Padre Pio are, apparently, from Bushwick, in Brooklyn. This has no connection at all with rapper Bushwick Bill from the Geto Boys, but it's still an excuse to show the cover of their album We Can't Be Stopped, which features Bushwick Bill being rolled into hospital AFTER HE SHOT HIMSELF IN THE EYE. Now that's hardcore.

Today's New Band - Saboteur

2008-07-24T10:10:00.002+01:00

When it was announced, I thought The Verve headlining Glastonbury Festival was a bit of a weak move - The Verve have been split and silent for years now; Richard Ashcroft's solo output has been the sub-MOR equivalent of dipping your head into a stagnant duck-pond; surely they're doing one more comeback for tax reasons, etc.

Watching their headline set on TV, I realised that, fortunately, I was super-wrong. Instead of the expected clunky phoning-in of their 90's hits, they were all the things they used to be, and more. Epic songs about love and loss from a band that has so much confidence in itself that they finished off not with their most famous song, but a brand new single, which - guess what - is ace. I was thrilled and a bit ashamed to have been so cynical.

It also struck me that what made them so great was simply that, while in the 90's they were, on the surface, just another rock band wearing cagoules, that exact quality was now what set them so far apart from their current peers. To differentiate yourself from the skinny jeans 'n' ties hoard is to be automatically ahead of the pack. So, Today's New Band are Saboteur. They don't sound like The Verve, but they do sound different to the Haircut-Indie bands. Their starting point and ethos isn't the usual Joy Division/Strokes/Boomtown Freaking Rats yadda-yadda. Oh and they're German, further compounding that niggling feeling I've been getting that German music is really good at the moment.

Song Love Spreader, whilst sounding slightly obscene, is a chiming treat, devoid of posing, archness or cynicism. It pulses with the simple delight of being in a band and making music. A Cabbage White is the same. Saboteur remind me a little bit of forgotten 80's band The Chills, who possibly because they were from New Zealand and thus were Not Cool, didn't become as big as they deserved. So listen and enjoy Saboteur right now, while you can.

ANBAD = The KISS OF DEATH - Today's New Band - Everything We Say Is Fact

2008-07-23T10:19:00.003+01:00

THE GREAT NEW BAND CULL CONTINUES!

What is it with bands splitting up so soon? It's painful to see them cut down before they've even had a chance to be in their prime. Look at the past examples on A..N.B.A.D. - the wonderful The Royal We recorded a lone, brilliant, EP and then got all grumpy and split up and then, on Monday, the super Held By Hands imploded, leaving us with just a few, lovely, sad tracks to remember them by.

So it appears that A New Band A Day has the reverse Midas touch - this is the second time this week that a band has split up just days before they are featured. And it's only Wednesday. Perhaps we should have Bon Jovi or The Kooks on here on Thursday and Friday, and see if they do the decent thing. Therefore, take this opportunity to have a peek into the coffin of Today's New (Dead) Band, Everything We Say Is Fact. They slipped into a musi-coma last week, and the machine was switched off shortly after. From the sounds of their FRANTIC, mentalist music though, they lived life to the full, and must have been dragged to Noise Rock Heaven kicking and screaming, because, well, that's pretty much how their breathless songs sound.

Of all the weather patterns that get me a bit grouchy, windy days are up there with fine drizzle, but on Ewsif Hates Blustery Weather, Everything We Say Is Fact demonstrate that they REALLY hate it. Guitars grind and howl whilst the drums get punctured from the ANIMAL! ANIMAL! ANIMAL!-style treatment they receive, and, just to makes sure everyone is aware of their message, there's about 3 or four false endings. Their other songs, like Noah Won't Let Me On The Ark, are all approached with the same forehead-stoving enthusiasm.

You could approximate Everything We Say Is Fact's sound and impact at home if you put all of your pots, pans and cutlery in a bin, then climbed in yourself and rolled it all down a hill. But much easier than that is to just listen to their songs, right here, right now.

Today's New Band - GILDA BLISS

2008-07-22T09:35:00.004+01:00

The only printed magazine I bother reading is Viz. It's a comic ostensibly aimed at adults featuring solely puerile humour. One of its characters, Ravey Davey Gravy, features it's 'hero' in all manner of mundane situations - testing doorbells, walking past bleeping burglar alarms - and finding enough Rinsin' Choonage in the sounds have Have It Large. If there is a point to all this idiocy (and this is stretching it) it is that humans love repetitive noise. It's been well documented in less toilet humour-inclined publications.

Today's New band, Gilda Bliss, is aware of the power of the same sounds coming at you again and again and again. The music isn't anything that would get Davey's motor running - their aren't anywhere near enough BPMs to encourage the breaking out of whistles and glo-sticks - but it is a powerful force used to create spookily evocative aural pleasure. Fnarrr, fnarrr. (Damn you, Viz.)

Dead Dog Dad has a similar Zen-by-noisy-repetition effect to My Bloody Valentine's infamous 'holocaust' ending to their live shows, except this time, you can simply turn it down when it gets too much, instead of holding your hands over your ears and weeping for 25 minutes. Dead Dog Dad phases in and out, over and over, like a sound-wave experiment you might have done in Physics at school. Like any repetitive noise, initial curiosity is followed by weariness, which is then followed by a zoned-out feeling of security.

It's this feeling that Gilda Bliss seems use his music to have a good rummage around in, with other sound-slabs, Small Imperfectly Formed and The Mistake also rolling out of the speakers like an audio fog. You won't be dancing, but you will be feeling overwhelming feelings of calm, or creeping horror., or both. Great. Listen to Gilda Bliss' repeato-noise here!

Today's New Band - Held By Hands

2008-07-21T10:12:00.000+01:00

Much like a good joke, the outcomes of life's intricacies depend on great, erm, you know.... timing. We've all thought of the right thing to do or say just 10 minutes later than would have been useful - the witty put-down to the brainless idiot who mocked you in a bar, or the slowly dawning realisation that maybe saying 'yes' to an asymmetrical mullet may not have been the right course of action.

The same is true with bands. So many bands have been in the right place at the wrong time that it's painful. It's a horrible truth is that if you are out of kilter with the majority, the chances of recognition are minimal - you could call it Van Gogh Syndrome. Fortunately most musicians don't follow his example to the letter, otherwise there would be severed ears scattered around guitar shops and recording studios all over the country.

Today's New Band, Held By Hands, were one that I had on my 'to do' list for a few months. As much of the decision-making process behind electing each day's new abnd is almost entirely arbitrary, today suddenly felt right to be a Held By Hands day. Their porcelain-delicate songs, which build and build but still seem as light as air at the end, were just perfect for easing gently into the coming week.

So how bowel-churningly typical that I revisited their Myspace page to find that Held By Hands split up about 3 weeks ago. This all leaves their beautiful song, Trading on Past Treasures, even more poignant, and definitely more fitting. It's a typically light, thoughtful and pretty swoop through introspectiveness, reaching a chorus of, "My God we were innocent/ My God, it was such a good time." Listen to their songs here, before they disappear, and mourn a bit for the passing of a lovely, unique band.

Today's New Band - Microwave Window

2008-07-18T10:55:00.007+01:00

Jesus Christ Monkey Balls, the process of choosing Today's New Band was akin to pulling teeth. No, actually, it was worse - physical pain is only temporary, but the mental scars from today will never fade, and will lurk in the corner of my addled mind to taunt me again just when I least expect it. It was a classic example of one of those moments when you just can't decide what CD to put on, and end up spending half an hour staring mutely at your shelves of CDs, reading the names and mentally writing them off as 'not quite right for now', whilst a pool of dribble from your limp jaw starts to moisten your socks.

In the end, just when I was about to start knawing on my fists with frustration, I found the band I wanted, having skipped over any number of lovely Swedish jangly guitar bands and stereotypical French BANGIN' CHOON merchants.

On most days those bands would have had me farting with glee, but today, the desire for a deliberately obtuse, brain-spazz noise-spewer crept up my trouser leg and grabbed me by the balls. As such, after the painful ordeal of searching for the right noise to satiate this idiot desire, one band stood out like a WAG in Lidl.

Thus, Today's New Band is the wonderful Microwave Windows. They have no songs, as such. What they do have is mind-fisting noise that is possibly sucked from the skies of a planet in a different solar system at the precise moment that their local sun decides to explode. Microwave Windows say that they use, "the Multimode Delay Line Distribution System (MDLDS) to generate 600 MW pulses for the accelerator by storing RF power from multiple klystrons and switching that power to the appropriate accelerator sections". This may or may not be nonsense, but when you've heard the sounds on their Myspace page, it'll sound all too plausible. Or your thought processes will be too garbled to know if it is or not. Listen to their logic-destroying noise now, and then listen to a song you know and love. It'll sound sparkling, chiming and new. Microwave Windows are an enema for the mind. Awesome.

Today's New Band - Copy Write This

2008-07-17T12:36:00.003+01:00

Short, sharp shocks. That's what you need sometimes. Not necessarily like receiving a one-inch punch to the throat from a previously hidden ninja when you pop out to the shop to buy the paper, mind. But an experience or - in particular - noise that shakes you from a slumber or from lethargy, is super-duper for all sorts of reasons. Laziness infects even the most thrusting young soul, and it'd be a huge LIE to say that we don't all need a wake-up call now and again.

Today's New Band, Copy Write This, is the aural equivalent of someone pinching your nose when you're asleep, except pleasurable. Dubiously pun-tastic name aside, and whilst their songs are thin on the ground, the ones they do have are mental smelling salts. Pulling a title from the School of Bleeding Obvious Song Names, Twitching and Salivating is as rabid and jumpy as suggested, using all the build-up-and-drop tricks in the book to create a rumbling face-smasher of a tune. Thumping crudely yet delicately along, it'd be a stone-hearted person who wouldn't get drawn in to it's bombastic thrills.

Copy Write This' other song, Brain Food, samples an oft-visited source of vocal idiocy, everyone's favourite brain-dead mouth-breather, George W. Bush. On paper, this seems like a cheap and easy target - who hasn't heard a million jibes at Dubya by now - but the song is actually a nicely abrupt stapling-together of his most cretinous moments, with an equally nice pulsating grumbly bass-heavy carpet beneath it.

So, a great chance to hear a really new work-in-progress musician, whose early stuff turns out to be a blustering rampage through a cauldron of clanking noise. Great. Listen here and wake yourself up!