>In the mornings, whilst I’m shoveling yoghurt, museli and toast into my flapping mouth, I need to watch TV to to kick-start my addled brain. The only real option outside of the dull and worthy news channels is GMTV, which is the televisual equivalent of reading the Daily Mail whilst eating a full ENGLISH breakfast and complaining loudly about IMMIGRANTS and IT WASN’T LIKE THIS IN THE OLD DAYS.

This morning I wasn’t able to perform my usual trick of phasing out all the moronic elements of GMTV, treating it purely as a mass of moving colours and shapes, and was forced to look elsewhere, in fear that I’d start worrying that a PAEDOPHILE IS ON EVERY STREET CORNER OH WHAT HAS THE WORLD COME TO.

I landed in desperation on an infomercial for a compilation of ‘Midnight Soul’ songs that featured tight harmonies and even tighter trouser crotches. The gist of the infomercial was, “Buy this nine-CD collection for only £39.99 and you are guaranteed SEX”

This is a decent selling point, I suppose, though one of the collection’s featured artists was someone called Keith Sweat, which, unless you like spending sweaty intimate time with crooning men called Keith, is about as anti-sexy a name as there is. Today’s New Band won’t guarantee you sex. Let’s make this absolutely clear now. They are The Trees, and they are from Basildon.

Neither of those details reek of imminent sexual gratification, but then again, would you want them to? The Trees are also another recession-friendly band (see yesterday’s post), accessible to all and ready to jump into a Transit Van and tour the country. Their music is both comforting and sharpening, like a mug of cocoa laced with ground-up caffeine tablets.

Stop Talking, after warming up, pummels you into submission, drums relentlessly splashing and pounding. The song occasionally stops to ponder whether to cross the perilous line into late 80’s baggy. Fortunately it never does, and we are all winners because of this. It sounds like lazy thrash. Good.

Dirty Money is a straight-up, excitable Riff-O-Rama, which all makes their song Odd One Out, the, er, odd one out, being folksy, dreamy and soft as a pile of goose down. The Trees are a band to end a tumultuous week on ANBAD with appropriate and disparate tumultuousness. Listen to them here!

PS – Oh, and next week, we’re proud, in every sense of the word, to welcome a brand new writer on ANBAD, who’ll be thrilling you with another New Band Perspective. More info, tantalisingly, next week…