Neu Relics

: Relics
Based: London
Listen: ‘Nothing Left To Lose’
Similar to: The Horrors, My Bloody Valentine

If you’ve been paying attention recently you’ll have noticed a new crop of British bands who are intent on professing their kinship with Alan McGee’s Creation Records. Unlike the majority of them, Relics aren’t a pastiche, but a forward-thinking homage.

Having formed in 2008 amidst the post-Horrors London scene, (yes they’re not exactly ‘Neu’, but we’ll get to that), they played a few shows and festival appearances over the next two years. Eventually they went on hiatus to attend university, though guitarist Alexander briefly played with Romance. Now they’re back and it’s full steam ahead. Their first track ‘Ease’ pricked ears with it’s cleverly interwoven grunge textures and Primary Colours-esque melodies, helping them to secure a headline slot at Neu’s ‘Hello 2014’ showcase.

But if that track pricked, then their second effort ‘Nothing Left To Lose’ was more of a punch. It’s fuzzed-out bassline being the aural equivalent of a fetid gargoyle springing to life. The whirring guitars FX’d to the hills are a magnetising homage to My Bloody Valentine, with a vocal hook so infectious you’d have to be quarantined in a cell made of penicillin to get it out of your system. If they can entrance this well in a song that goes comfortably beyond five minutes, then their future is bright indeed.