Cats And Cats And Cats/ This Town Needs Guns - 'Split LP' (Big Scary Monsters) Released 01/10/07

Cats And Cats And Cats sing like The Cribs. Which is weird. The Cribs are all Ramones-y and ramshackle and what not; whereas this five (sometime six) piece from Staines have the same he-can’t-sing vibe going on, but with lightning speed changes and crashing cymbals. Somehow, the voice is everything on opener ‘Brilliant The Brilli Ant’, and so it proves throughout…‘Anchoress’ is all finger picking an endearingly amateur bawling with the added curiosity of a Kim Deal sound-a-like singing along. It’s Big Scary Monsters music. The new breed, the Meet Me In St Louis, Jenniferever, Gat Cape Wear Cape Fly scope of things that gets endorsed right up the behind from many a corner (because it’s quite good) but never gets anywhere commercially (because people are idiots).

‘Tower Tower’, for example, won’t get played at the Koko on a Friday night but its shifty guitar, forced aggression and chat about the English language demand attention. They sound sweet. Like the kids at school that could’ve been teachers, but instead they didn’t bother doing their homework because they were too busy working out the best way to combine The Dismemberment Plan and Mogwai. Job well done, to be sure.

Meanwhile, Match Of The Day is on and This Town Needs Guns are my soundtrack. It’s not obvious football fodder, and it doesn’t work at all. Good. It’s not stadium music. It’s jangly, complicated, Morrissey fronted mayhem. Not actual Morrissey, obviously, but all high notes and lingering musings mean that Alan Hansen’s absence is bearable. ‘If I Sit Still Maybe I’ll Get Out Of Here’ is as yearn-y and emo as it sounds, but with some spangly guitars and drum breakdowns it retains all of its dignity without spilling everything on to the page. They do sing about death and yesteryear though, so it’s not all constrained. ‘1470 Man’ repeats more of the same over-complications and prominent percussive emphasis before ‘It’s Not True Rufus, Don’t Listen To The Hat’ completes the epic misanthropy.

Keep on eye on both of these, destined as they are for life on the underground.