The lineup: Steve Mathieson (vocals, guitar), Tim Van Dammen (drums, handclaps), Stephen Parry (bass), James Brennan (guitar, backing vocals).
The background: From the label that brought the world Late Of The Pier, Cajun Dance Party, Laura Marling and Jamie T come Collapsing Cities, who have just moved to Britain to capitalise on their reputation back home in New Zealand for exuberant, twisted post-punk indie rock. Twisted? The band's debut single Fear Of Opening My Mouth features the playful warning, "Next year I think I'll kill myself", and it's jolly enough to catch on with its "I've got the fear" chorus, unison sung-spoken vocals, handclaps, curvilinear guitar pattern and shambling rhythm just made for collapsing students at indie discos. Fans in high school of exponents of askew indie both American (Pavement, Truman's Water) and local (those heroes of the Dunedin scene, the Clean), CC played their first gig exactly two years ago, in May 2006, when they opened something called the Disasteradio/Kill Surf City Low Hum tour. "We're still toddlers," they say, "but confident toddlers".
You'll be able to catch a glimpse of these precocious indie infants over the next few weeks, starting tonight, when they appear at the Barfly in Camden, then over the next few days during the Levi's One's To Watch Tour with Late Of The Pier, and finally down at the Great Escape in Brighton next week. And if you miss all of those, they're supporting Black Kids in June. You'll be able to witness their modus operandi - the band apparently scam free studio time wherever they can and record as many songs as they can manage live - and find out what it is that's getting indie's crucial three of the airwaves (Steve Lamacq, Huw Stephens and Zane Lowe were all at their debut UK show last week) so excited. If you like ramshackle, anarchic, chaotic guitar-pop based on nagging, high-register, angular riffs, brainy/dumb choruses and lyrics that expose the contradictions of the modern world and the human condition, you should check them out.
The buzz: "Fear Of Opening My Mouth is a propulsive, jaw-dropping proposition."
The truth: They sound like an NZ version of one of those new American or Canadian commune-bands purveying close-to-collapse indie-pop.
Most likely to: Make Pavement reconsider the timing of their comeback.
Least likely to: Make you depressed.
What to buy: Debut single Fear Of Opening My Mouth is released by Way Out West on May 26, with the debut album Elixir Always to follow later this year.
File next to: Go-Betweens, Triffids, the Clean, Clap Your Hands Say Yeah.
Links: www.myspace.com/collapsingcities
Tomorrow's new band: Underground Heroes.
See Also
