Another week, another excuse to wheel out the donkey picture, another seven days of drinking to stop the voices screaming when all you want to do is sleep. A nice balanced mixtape of songs is needed. Unfortunately, you get this:

First! Jaded Hipster Choir say that all the songs on their new EP are about drugs. Having listened to Foreigner, I would sure hope so, because I’m not hugely keen to meet the human who recorded such a gear-grinding noisepocalypse when they were straight.

Jaded Hipster Choir // Foreigner

Like all drugs, temptation pervades Foreigner. The reason such a noisy track was made is the same reason a toddler bangs saucepans with wooden spoons – except it’s rare that the results are so gratifying.

Second! Shiva… wait – have Shiva been on ANBAD before? No, I don’t think so. It’s getting hard to keep track these days. Still, they could easily have been, because their songs are neat little nuggets of anglo-janglo rock. A band that are going places? Yep.

Third! Mono Stereo… OK, this is getting weird now. I was positive I’d written about this band too. Maybe I should lay off the ether. Still, bands from Sweden are usually uniformly good, so maybe this is where the confusion lies. Mono Stereo are no exception, and almost create their own genre – a kind of Britpop Psych swirl, which ought to be dreadful, but works; a happy, cheery frolic.

Fourth! The Red Show used to be both a pop-punk band and a metal band. Usually, this knowledge would send me running not only for cover, but for knitting needles to shove in my ears, but there’s a surprise following the expected: The Red Show might create the kind of chugga-chugga riffola you’d anticipate, but hey – the way they do it is a cut above, and might even make their fortune. Which in the heavy rock world probably equates to gallons of cider and Kohl-eyed groupies on tap, which sounds just fine to me.

No More! None.