currently listening

This week's top six:

1. The Cribs - Men's Needs: Anyone else get the feeling that The Cribs are going to be very massive, very soon? If so, they'll thoroughly deserve it. I had their 'You'll Never Lose Us' pegged as a big hit a couple of years back but it's taken them this long to break through. They're kind of like a Franz Ferdinand or The Rakes who actually have the tunes to back up the energy and attitude, and I love this.
2. Children Collide - Frozen Armies: saw this lot at The Great Escape and was blown away by them; heavy, noisy Australian indie rock somewhere between early Lemonheads and Nirvana - brilliant riffs and bags of energy, but they've got proper songs, too.
3. Blonde Redhead - 23 (LP): This, along with the really good latest album by The Ponys, which Dustin recently copied me, has provided me with the rest of my week's quota of Sonic Youth guitars. It's great to have Blonde Redhead back after a few years away - still as good as ever.
4. Cold War Kids - Hang Me Out to Dry: I'd heard a few songs by this lot and not been impressed, but this track, which I just heard today, is just awesome - the heavily off-kilter guitars and pianos work a treat, and the whole thing just shakes and saunters it's way into my memory vault, so I keep twitching with the rhythm; ace.
5. Micah P. Hinson - Drift Off To Sleep: Another highlight of The Great Escape, this dark country music is the kind of thing I'd could have admired but never loved five years ago, so measured and authentic, so beholden to tradition - but it's truly lovely. And if that means I've grown up, then so be it.
6. Dizzee Rascal - Sirens: Both musically and physically, Dizzee seems to have just come back much stronger; this track is bruising and compelling, a dense cacophony consisting of slabs of rock guitar, beats and sirens, with Dylan telling us "I break the law, I never will change" over the top.