For me, 2006 has been all about folk and electro - a lot of new music I’ve new really explored suddenly sounding a lot more accessible, intricate and less pretentious. Making the occasional transition was easy enough when I was pointed in the right direction, but I Was A Cub Scout and their ilk are keeping the majority of my musical endeavours grounded in Drive-Thru rock and guitar inspired/ led pop that has been the mainstay of my music taste + purchases since I got into music in a big way circa the very late 1990’s.

XL have recently signed are very interested this Nottingham based 2 piece, after an initial release on Fear and Records. It doesn’t sound British in an obvious way - just in the restraint applied, and attempts they’ve made to avoid overriding the vocals with mentalism, which will quite likely come out - to fans delight - in live shows. Drowned in Sound called it “rousing, rambunctious package of disco-pop joy, wrapped in punk-rock language and indie electronica.”. I think that is seven genres they managed to fit in there. But to me it’s all about the keyboards and a U.S/ L.A punk attitude that doesn’t often find home on this blog.

As always, you can click the band name to access the bands web sites, right click the track title to download it (right click, then select save target as/ save link as or similar to download the track to your hard-drive). Or alternately just click the play button to hear a stream of the track!

I Was A Cub Scout - Pink Squares

IWACS play just about every city in the U.K between now and April 1st dates are available at their myspace.

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