Deaf To Van Gogh's Ear / Well Wisher / Hyacinth Girl @ Crack Yr Skull

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Last night saw the first Crack Yr Skull ‘fucking sweet happy night’ that featured live bands – moving from existing strictly as an emo, punk, rock, post-hardcore and surprisingly screamo disco to supporting a range of different but thematically loud 'party' bands in Manchester. With a DIY ethic, Crack Yr Skull is an earnest encouraging forum for emerging artists and happily avoids twee inaccessibility. Matching homemade baby photomontages for band visuals with the Beastie Boys and Nirvana was a mean feat.

Headlining were Heaton Chapel’s finest, Deaf To Van Gogh’s Ear, a young math pop band with mature influences. For a band so young it’s refreshing to hear a deliberated sound, a sound steeped in modern classical influence, technical, creative initiative and calmer pop. DTVGE stop and start with intricate rhythmic structures, interspacing bass, trumpet, guitar, drums and keyboard last night for a sound that displays their interest in emo sensitivity (Evan’s lyrics are jerky and soft (in a very British way, no US twinge here), electronica and melodic pop. This emerging band who sound like they work damn hard, with all their influence, are not pretentious or poseur and, frankly, they should be travelling the world with their balloons very soon.

Deaf To Van Gogh's Ear... “…could give Carol Vorderman a severe brain ache’…” MEN

Joined were Well Wisher, a loud, thrashing, spasmodic pop band with a lead singer that twist, jumps, turns and shrieks emo until your ears bleed loveblood (got carried away there) and Hyacinth Girl, noise-pop in the vein of Abe Vigoda, straight outta Withington. Both Well Wisher and Hyacinth Girl suit the punk tastes of Crack Yr Skull and made for a drunken riotous night, with split bass drums and all.

Check them all out below...

www.myspace.com/deaftovangoghsear

www.myspace.com/wellwisher10

www.myspace.com/hyacinthgirls

“Well Wisher…pulling down pants across the UK”

This came in the post for free yo...The Cribs / We Share The Same Skies

After a few listens to the brilliant new single taken from Ignore The Ignorant, you come to understand the extent of The Cribs’ mature progress, perhaps focused on Marr’s inclusion and their ascendance up rock hierarchy. But, just listen to their lyrics:

“A strange union the other day

It's a dead Russian, the papers say

But it would be nice if they realised

That she thought 'he is mine”

The Jarmans’ writing may focus still on tensions and anxieties in day-to-day dalliances and looking back at ‘You Were Always The One’, or ‘Learning How To Fight’, there always are reflections on restless and deliberated love with naïve rhythmic patterns and regional, gravelly chants. Within We Share The Same Skies, however, there are cleaner moments of vocal harmony and thankfully they drift away from the ‘real’ laziness of, say, “And I know I said I needed some time alone, and I know I never seem to pick up the phone, and though you will see me with someone else, you were always the one.” The Cribs still retain the same youth rebellion and discordant pop melody as they slip past peers The Paddingtons or The Others to find success, and these smoother songs from Ignore The Ignorant allow Marr to thicken their guitar pop and the band remain one of the best pop rock acts out there, departing from grey Northern Wakefield skies to broader horizons. The Cribs clean up, let’s just wait for a Jarman collaboration with butterman John Lydon.

“I have decided it's best that you know

I'm still thinking about

Old ties as north-west skies grow cold”