Strip show

So we used the bank holiday to get through pretty much all our backlog of promos, taster mp3s and stuff sent on the off-chance, and in among all the half-baked rock posing and unexciting electropop (because it's the in thing) we found quite a few little gems, which we'll be bringing you over the next few days. Mostly bands we've already written about, in truth.

Ace Bushy Striptease, for one. The inscrutable Tom Whyman, our brother in The Line Of Best Fit arms, calls the Birmingham sextet-at-the-moment "this generation's Beatles". Well, maybe he's pressing the point a little forcefully, but it's undeniable that now they seem to have a settled line-up and are at least working towards a unified sound they're coming into something really good. They exist in that world where indiepop meets slashing scrap guitars, have a fight in which they nearly lose their place several times, like to think they'd be a pop hook kind of band if they had the mental strength. They sound like the Deirdres (RIP) pretending they're Johnny Foreigner, at other times Beat Happening after being force fed the Thermals or Sky Larkin getting an advertising gig for Fisher Price's My First Mika Miko... yeah, ultimately meaningless descriptive phrases like that. Basically sometimes they're light as a feather, then they decide to be post-hardcore instead, and in a funny, itchy, jumpy way it works. They sent us some demos recently. We've harvested as we saw fit at the time. They do tremendous song titles too.

Ace Bushy Striptease - "Arrogance Is My Middle Name", Said Will Davies Arrogantly
Ace Bushy Striptease - And She Smiled (At Me) Across The Void