We LOVE We Were Promised Jetpacks

We Were Promised Jetpacks

Every so often, a new band gets thrown your way without the precursing hype setting them up for a fall; We Were Promised Jetpacks played London’s Borderline last week, and they’ve set themselves up as that band. That new band to hear recordings from, to see repeatedly, to follow on Google Blog search; hell, to see if anyone else is as prematurely fanatical about.

Raucous yet head down, visually close to shoegaze yet with massively enormously loud choruses, this four-piece are an enticing set of contrasts. And predictably, they’re from Scotland. Must be something in the Loch.

It becomes a bit tiresome going to see bands whose back catalogues run up and down your cubit like a map of a 300m radius from your house, and We Were Promised Jetpacks are just the antidote for such passive fatigue.

‘Moving Clocks Run Slow’, streaming from the MySpace, merely introduces the wondrous interplay between the instruments set behind face-to-the-mic, pit of the gut vocals. And it’s all presented live in a gloriously understated fashion, facially nonchalant and spatially fixed (or more aptly, fixated). And ‘Keeping Warm’ is an amped up Frightened Rabbit with little string and xylophone flinches to aurally bemuse; to think that that’s the acoustic version brings us close to falling off the edge of our chaise langue.

Another in the long list of brilliant artists signed to FatCat Records, every one of their songs is a massive eye-opener. On its own terms and as part of the set.

A little bit of Fugazi, a smidgeon of Mono, a more vivacious Twilight Sad, a peppering of sped-up Mogwai and a polyrhythmic take on the old twangtastic Orange Juice guitars – how could you not fall for that?