Regina Spektor - Fidelity (Sire) hear here
Everett: Regina. Isn’t she like the acceptable face of the new folk weird?
Louis: Not so folksy, really: it’s indie kookiness. She stamps on the floor when she plays, and things.
Everett: Oh blimey, she’s got a hic-cup-up-up-uping motif? This is far too polite for me.
Kick: Yeah, it’s mature. Extra mature… Singer-songwriters grow up faster than regular people.
Everett: can you like this and still be a goth?
Louis: If I didn’t know how she looked i’d imagine she looked exactly like Lisa Loeb.
Kick: Maybe, but you wouldn’t play it in yr hearse.

We Are The Physics - Fear Of Words (One) hear here
Louis: I heard this lot sound like Pantera.
Kick: What, the shampoo?
Everett: From Glasgow. ‘Mutant science punk rock quartet’, spikey and full of jagged little chords. Influenced by A Flock Of Seagulls. Wankers.
Kick: ‘Purposeful’.
Louis: This is fun.
Everett: Do Pantera sound this speed-freaky?
Kick: I quite like this. Vocals are like a sudoku square.
Louis: It’s like a Devo who only just discovered electricity. By walking on a carpet with plastic-soled shoes. They are upset by this realisation.
Kick: ‘Insistent’. It’s got that FFWD prog rock thing happening. Like if they’re proggy fast enough no one will notice.
Louis: This is kind of how you’d like The Horrors to sound, although of course they don’t
Everett: Better than stretchmarks

The Pierces - Sticks And Stones (Lizard King) hear here
Everett: Debut single from Alabama-born New Yorkers sisters who’ve travelled with gypsies. Cute Emily the Goth-style illo of two girls on the sleeve.
Kick: It’s got a bit of the homemade fairground thing happening. Seems a bit photogenic and streamlined for alleged gypsy fellow-travellers?
Louis: It’s the theme tune to a TV show about witches, except the witches turn out to be friendly. This show is popular amongst young girls looking for strong female role models. Everett also is a fan, and tapes every episode.
Kick: a bit obviously romantic, a bit too cosy and well-worn.
Everett: Yeah, like Ben Stiller playing a vampire? I hate friendly witches.

Au Revoir Simone - Fallen Snow (Moshi Moshi) hear here
Everett: Moody looking Brooklyn girls, a trio bearing candles and long legs.
Kick: I like these guys. They’re like librarians in a seventies film.
Louis: It’s music for walking round New York in the snow.
Kick: And I like that they use organs instead of guitars. Makes it less organic-sounding. Like an old car, or a lens flare.
Everett: If you’ve got snow and NYC you certainly wouldn’t want this anodyne piece of crap.
Kick: I think they have their own version of New York which wd probably look like a woodprint in an old book.
Louis: They have quite limited voices, but the whole thing is pretty effective I think.

bonus content: spooky/cute video!

Television Personalities - My Dark Places Remixes (Domino)
Everett: Depressed indie poets are given a series of odd treatments from Ratatat, Battles, Black Dice etc?
Kick: Seems like a really perverse idea, and sounds pretty, um, left-of-centre, too? It’s big on atmosphere. And dissonance stretched thin. Gauzy.
Everett: Blimey! Makes me wish for the days when good music was popular and popular music was good. This is mental. Childish voices and mashed up beats.
Kick: It is pretty nighmarish…
Louis: A horrible confusion of glitchy electronica and off-key druggy shouting and no actual ideas whatsoever.
Everett: Yeah, well you’ve just described 99 per cent of popular music.
Louis: I always think, when I listen to a remix, what sort of club would play this? And the answer in this case, is “No club whatsoever”.
Kick: Wow. Imagine this in a club.
Everett: I’d dance!
Kick: It wd actually be so intense. Like the ground’s pitching hither, and indeed, thither.
Louis: No one’s even trying. I’m going to turn this off now. It’s rubbish
Kick: I was semi-enjoying it. Like messing with a loose tooth.