The Answering Machine - Animals

The Answering Machine were able to smell the pungent scent of success before they’d even ventured beyond using a drum machine and instead found themselves Ben Perry – a sticksman who arrived in 2007 and just in time for a splurge of sell out vinyl-pressed singles, headline tours and big-name festival appearances.

Following on from their early successes, the Mancunians finally got round to releasing their debut album - ‘Another City, Another Sorry’ - in June 2009, clawing recognition months before the likes of Everything Everything and Delphic shimmied along to truly set northern city alight.

Just over one year on, as everyone’s eyes turn to Manchester offerings, The Answering Machine return with ‘Animals’, the debut single from second LP, ‘Lifeline’, set to be released early 2011.

Tick tock percussion and jangly riffs open up the track (seriously, this hooky intro is just waiting to sound bite some teen drama commercial), before giving way to Colclough’s sundried vocals, seasoned with an endearing Northern kick - ‘Oh it seems that you know me, better than you know myself.’ The chorus is, too, a shiny mass of sound, with it’s tumbling licks and girly hums hovering in the distance.

Alas, there’s no denying the fret work and odd injection of synth of ‘Animals’ sounds utterly commonplace, and honestly, it could easily be the product of any drainpipe jeaned quartet, but that’s not to say the single isn’t a fun little listen.