19.9.11

Van Susans - 'We Could Be Scenery' (Beatnik Geek) 3/5


Van Susans come from Bromley in Kent and play fairly mainstream indie rock in the same vein as outfits like The Pigeon Detectives. Now normally this sort of stuff isn't my bag and I would really bother writing a review, but there is something about this debut five tracker that made me take note.

The lead track, Cha Cha Bang starts with a nice rocky riff before carrying on reverting to standard indie fare, big hooks, fuzzy guitar washes and the like. Then we have Get Up, Get Out - with it's indie by numbers choppy delayed and chorus heavy guitar riff and 'hay hay' sing-a-long hook, the angsty Plans with its 'I'm not pissed off cos my girlfriend has dumped me - honest' type lyrics that students and indie kids love so much and the closer Glow, a wrist slittingly depressive little ditty 'We used to make love by starlight, but all she can do now is watch me burn..' yeah real uplifting stuff.

However the track that stands out, not only above the rest of this ep, but above a lot of indie rock in general is the second cut Bones. Again its a down beat track with some standard lost love lyrics, but it's played with a drive and fire that counter points the dower vocals perfectly. I normally have little truck with this kind of music, but this is one track I can't stop playing, it really is that good.

So over all I would give this ep a miss, unless your into down beat student indie - but I would also recommend you seek out Bones as a single track download as it's a song that is truly genre defining.

In short - a bog standard indie ep with one true killer track

for fans of... The Soup Dragons, The Pigeon Detectives, Manic Street Preachers, MGMT etc...

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