News This Week In New Music (26th April 2014)

This is it, then. The time of year when seeing new bands becomes not just a grubby habit, but a complete addiction. If there’s anything that defines May - aside from adjusting into lighter clothes and buying knock-off sunglasses - it’s the gigs. Bar October, May’s probably the most gig-heavy time of the year. Get used to the multiple sensations of seeing an amazing new band for the first time and feeling the sweat on your forehead turn into one solitary, formidable drop.

Everything kicks off at Liverpool Sound City. We’ve got guys like Royal Blood on the DIY Stage, so it’s not exactly going to be a timid affair. After that - Live At Leeds. In the same weekend. Woman’s Hour play the Brudenell Social Club for us there. One week later it’s the Great Escape and yes, by this point we’re wondering how and if we’ll ever put out another magazine given the amount of time spent inside little venues. And once festival season gets in full flow, standout names from these smaller-scale affairs begin to jump out alongside the big guns. Gnarwolves are playing the main stage at Reading & Leeds. SOHN and The Acid are giving Latitude a go. Glastonbury’s barely even announced 1/50th of its bill. This is the time of year where internet buzz and whathaveyou finally translates into the serious business.

TRACK OF THE WEEK
Vaults - Premonitions


Maybe it’s an overstatement to call Vaults this year’s answer to Massive Attack, but let’s face the facts: Before now, acts like Moko were at least hinting that trip-hop was back on the menu. Since then nothing as finite and brilliantly ‘Unfinished Symphony’-like has emerged - until ‘Premonitions’. Vaults’ second ever song and first single proper isn’t a grand old nostalgia train. It’s a cause for rejoice. Dripping with cool, this is pristine pop with a genuine cause.

A special mention also goes out to Hannah Diamond, who took her meta PC Music pop to a completely new place with ‘Attachment’. It proved the most divisive track of the week by a long shot - and this week’s DIY Tracks round-up gave it suitable dues.

VIDEO OF THE WEEK
Blaue Blume - In Disco Lights


Blaue Blume are a very special band, the best thing to come out of Denmark since Schmeichel’s magic hands. ‘In Disco Lights’ - their best track to date - is the sort of song that gets under the skin, into the system, giving nerve endings a new purpose. God forbid, it’s a song capable of making you hop. On the spot. Even if you’ve never hopped before, just wait. This is the beginning of a new chapter. The hop-olympics.

As 80s-referencing visuals hog up the picture in this new video - the band’s first - frontman Jonas Smith stays resolute. He hops to his heart’s content. There is so much bloody hopping, it’s beautiful. And this otherwise mad movement seems like the most natural response to ‘In Disco Lights’ in the world.

DISCOVERY OF THE WEEK
Baby In Vain


Some of the standout names at SXSW are beginning to stand out. Alvvays are included, having recently inked a deal with Polyvinyl. In slightly more seedier surroundings than that band’s day-glo display, a Danish trio by the name of Baby In Vain were giving Texas a grubbier shade. Thurston Moore and Ty Segall are both fans, apparently, and bloody hell you should be too. On the basis of ‘Corny #1’ (which might be about a cornetto, but let’s face it that’s too innocent for this lot), here exists a band capable of spinning referential rock ‘n roll on its head. Instead of it being a prescription for old folks looking to relive the glory days, Baby In Vain make sharp dart riffs and grizzly production sound like a modern day phenomenon, something capable of infecting the planet like a terrifying epidemic.