Sometimes people ask me “where music is going next.”

These are people labouring under the misapprehension that I, as a music blogger, have my “finger” on the “pulse”, when actually, nothing could be much further from the truth.

Regular readers know that ANBAD is not good at predicting and riding new waves of genrefied interest.

Today’s new band, The Drum, are probably hoisted high on a wave of their own creation however, and so for once maybe ANBAD is near the front of the curve. Or not. You choose.

What is fairly clear to these ears is that …

There’s a certain theatricality subliminally associated with rock ‘n’ roll.

We all want the garish outfits, the ludicrous behaviour, the out-there posturing: witness The Darkness‘ unexpected – but entirely understandable -rise to fame a few years ago.

It’s just that most of us now hide that desire under the guise of being ”cool’.

Cool doesn’t want silly hats, or outlandishness, or fun: it wants a bunch of weedy music snobs in leather jackets glaring at us from under their ruffled hair.

Felix Hagan understands that to reject this image of cool is to move out of the pack, and its …

Now that the ANBAD Midweek Mixtape is merely a conduit for another picture of Alex James pouring molten cheese onto something, the pressure is well and truly on.

Sometimes it’s a struggle to find a suitable, current, timely cheese victim. And sometimes, Justin Bieber dresses up like Gary Glitter, and it all seems just a bit too easy. Thanks Justin.

And so, on with the first Mixtape of 2012.

FIRST! Since being named Britain’s Best New Band by, er, ANBAD this time two years ago, Egyptian Hip Hop have been relatively quiet. And now we know why. It’s because …

For the last few days, ANBAD’s internet connection has been madly spluttering like a Daily Mail reader at a Gay Pride  parade. Thus this post nearly didn’t get online at all, even in this wildly curtailed form.

This is fortunate, because Sick Friend are the kind of band you want to discover sooner rather than later.

There haven’t been many Canadian bands on ANBAD of late – not because Canada is lacking in good new bands (it’s positively teeming with them) – but because, well, them’s the breaks sometimes.

The Draft Dodger is lolloping and lazy, staggering like a …

Yesterday I visited BBC Radio Manchester, at the impressively futuristic Media City UK in Salford (which, when lit up at night looks just like a spaceport), to tip some bands for the coming year.

The show goes out on Sunday night, so I can’t tell you which bands I staked my flimsy reputation on yet, but needless to say it was a uniquely stressful half-hour – not only because I was suggesting who might ‘make it’, but also because I was asked to comment on the state of the modern music scene, and where it was heading next.

Well, what …

Yesterday brought us a crash course in new-band marketing; today presents simplicity: a band with songs online to play to you.

Wait, here’s the first problem: Burning Building‘s songs aren’t simple at all. They’re complex, leaping from one idea to another, styles and genres akimbo.

And yet, they’re easily accessible to even the most unadventurous of ears. This, of course, is the band’s chief achievement.

Is Knowing/Not Knowing a heavy rock chug, a clattering post-rock cacophony, a math-rock pitter-patter, or all of the above? Should we even care?

Contorted, stuttering and polymathic: in many ways, Burning Buildings are indicative …

Chris Devotion and The Expectations are lucky. They’re lucky in more than one sense, which must make them extra lucky. Lucky is what bands need to be.

Their most important slice of luck materialises in their ability to write tasty, up-and-at-’em rock  songs like A Modest Refusal – the type of song that doesn’t get written often enough, with a howl-along chorus, a genuinely anthemic feel, and the kind of gosh-darn perfect chord changes that make grown men leap about with joy.

The song below is not A Modest Refusal. It’s Blister, which is a good song, but …

As dictated by The Music Blogger’s Handbook (we’re all issued with one when we sign up to inflict our views on an indifferent world), there are three things that ANBAD must be doing right now.

Firstly, this post needs to be appearing after the mandatory Two Week Christmas Recovery Period, where all email is automatically deleted, and any mentions of a trudge through Soundcloud or Bandcamp is deflected with a nervous laugh and the tinkle of another gin and tonic being poured.

Secondly, the ‘site’ (no-one has a blog any more) is spruced up to be slightly cleaner,…

Well. This is awkward. Didn’t Lissi Dancefloor Disaster feature on ANBAD last year? What are they doing astride the top of the Best Of 2011 List? Have I lost my mind?

Well, in answer to the first question: yes, they were on ANBAD in 2010 – I saw them play a short, brilliant gig to an empty room underneath Oldham Street in Manchester and simply had to tell someone about it.

In answer to he second and most important question: they are #1 because, simply, LDD’s Pop Musiiic wheedled its way into my brain from the instant I heard it …

Nearly there now… don’t forget to check out the runners up (Parts One and Two), as well as the bands who are ranked from 10 to 6, and 5 to 3.

How did Trwbador sneak into the number two slot? They’re just so unassuming. Look at them. They wouldn’t even bruise a fly, let alone hurt one.

Well, bluntly, it’s because Sun In Winter has been buzzing around my brain like one of The Numskulls ever since I first marvelled at the breathtakingly clear-cut splicing of folk ‘n’ beatz that makes up this marvel of a …