Radio Luxembourg - Diwrnod Efo’r Anifeiliaid
In the recent past I’ve encountered assorted tracks by cult Welsh indie-poppers Radio Luxembourg elsewhere, but have remained wholly unconvinced. I’m pleased to say that their new EP defiantly bucks the trend. Playful but coherent, the EP flaunts a nice line in fuzzy retro-futurist indie that suggests they could be the missing link between the Beach Boys and Gorky’s Zygotic Mynci. Indeed, The Beach Boys influence looms particularly large, and this record is all the better for it. Good stuff. Imagine, if you will – The Shins if they came from Aberystwyth…
8/10

Review by Tom Leins
www.myspace.com/radiolux

Snowfight In The City Centre - Six Seconds
“I don’t wanna wait six seconds more” trills the Manc sextet’s Adam Jennings. For what though? It’s some point of mope, that’s for sure. But tis also a jangly, melodic tune, underpinned by basslines apounding, right from the moment he starts to, er wait.

Mottled with delicate strumming, and a lithe “duh, do, duh” vocal, which sounds better than it reads in print, the oddly named Snowfight in the City Centre has produced a 234 second get-together of indie pop and anthemic throb.

Despite all the hanging around – though musically much is afoot - our singer’s merely peeved, not pissed, and with it creates perfect pop prose.

Review by Michelle Connolly
www.snowfight.net

Polytechnic - Cold Hearted Business
Insidiously catchy Manc indie-pop from the off-centre pop mavericks who have already acquired an NME ‘Single of the Week’, and racked up support slots with the likes of Doves, The Breeders, Young Knives, The Shins and, erm Keane. Casually quirky, effortlessly likable – they sound to me like a much more fully formed version of US indie darlings Clap Your Hands Say Yeah. I’m really looking forward to their debut album and a full-length quota of their low-slung, wonky charms. I’m probably not the first person to write this, but: Polytechnic – too cool for school.

Review by Tom Leins
www.myspace.com/ukpolytechnic

Air Traffic - Charlotte
You have no doubt heard this passionate, heartfelt and hormone driven first single by the lads all over your indie radio recently. It is a terribly infectious dance to tune with its steady, scratchy guitar riff, and the singer sounds like The Cure’s Robert Smith in places. Its play is likely to be the deal clincher for young ‘uns wanting to go home together at the end of a night. It’s melodic, up beat, catchy…Indeed parallels can be drawn by those claiming ‘it’s been done before’, but there’s no denying this tack possesses something that makes it belong to Air Traffic. It may not change your life but it’s a good tune all the same, the only downfall being that it could do with being a little longer, you feel like it’s just about to really kick off, and it’s all over.

Review by Nancy Roxx
www.air-traffic.co.uk

The Donde Stars - You Can Keep The Kids
Swooping, swooning grandiose rock from the Welsh valleys. Sounds familiar? Sure enough, The Donde Stars bring to mind the (mid-period) Manics, but is that such a bad thing? Probably not. Sounding like some kind of long-lost love-in between the Manics and Radiohead, The Donde Stars new material is impressively-rendered, but possibly lacking in the individuality that would propel them towards the dizzy heights occupied by their heroes a decade ago. Nevertheless, fans of assertive strings, gloomy vocals and rainy anthemics won’t go far wrong.
7/10

Review by Tom Leins
www.myspace.com/dondestars

The Longcut - Idiot Check
Top tune from the Manchester experimentalists, and characteristic of their canon. Stuart Ogilvie’s distorted, vacuous vocal adds to the transcendental air that’s exhaled by gentle hi-hat action and foreboding bass. That air Ian Curtis et al. breathed.

At 0.47, a melodious five note guitar line tiptoes in alongside the rhythm section. Midway post-rock styled crescendos wrap around the ears, recounting briefly for that sweet guitar line once more.

The twin-tracker includes a cover of The Source’s hit ‘You Got The Love’,

making it a worthwhile couple of quid indeed.

Review by Michelle Connolly
www.thelongcut.com

The Cardinals - Hold On/Hello
Fronted by the mysteriously-named Seven, Mancunian trio The Cardinals offer up a double-dose of epic rock (by numbers)…

Not bad, but they seem to lack the songs to back up their poise and musicianship. Whereas a band like Suede also dealt in brusied small-town epics and wasted lives, they had a lyricist as charmingly idiosyncratic as Brett Anderson to elevate them above their Britpop contemporaries with his caustic urban fantasies. (Until the drugs turned his songs to cack at any rate!) Until Seven and his boys come up with some better songs they will merely be making up the numbers…
Five/10

Review by Tom Leins
www.myspace.com/thecardinalsmanchester

Get Cape. Wear Cape. Fly. - I Spy
Straight to his pared-down point, Sam Duckworth states boldly “It doesn’t matter that this song is a simple tune, even though it’s not what I’m supposed to do.”

That statement, however unflinchingly made, will only resonate with fans. For the non-devoted, it’s a case of folk-disguised emotional rocker, who, on his third single release, is this time not wrapping his recognisable acoustic melodies in enough laptop-beats to wrest it from accusations of hum-drum and tired; just listen to the languid lyric “I spy with my little eye.”

Add the fact that since singer-songwriters are solitary types with only themselves really to rely on for success, they do care that their lyrics touch that kid who’s just screamed “I hate you, world.” For God’s sake, these are the sorts of people to whom this music appeals.

The weakest of The Chronicals of a Bohemian Teenager’s singles, it’s pretty pedestrian stuff.

Review by Michelle Connolly
www.getcapewearcapefly.com