American Indie Vs British Indie

I watched a program last night called 'Later Live' which for any non UK readers is a live music show with a pretty eclectic range of guests. Well, it's about as eclectic as you would expect from the BBC.

There were two bands playing last night who would both be considered 'Indie' yet are very different.
The first was The Kooks who are an English band on Virgin records. The second was Yeasayer, a New York band on We Are Free records. The Kooks are typical of a lot of British Indie bands. They went to stage school and probably spend more time picking their outfits than writing songs. That's perhaps a little unfair, their songs are actually fun and catchy but they aren't exactly anything new. Their sound is boringly retro and they bring nothing new or unique. (This isn't something which only British bands are guilty of. Jet for example do exactly the same thing. Their biggest hit 'Are you gonna be my girl' is just a cover of 'Lust for life' with different lyrics). Johnny Borrell, who is no innovator himself, summed up The Kooks sound "It sounds like the band are literally rolling over, sticking their arse in the air and begging Radio 1 to fuck them."

Yeasayer on the other hand have an interesting almost tribal sound in a similar vein to Animal Collective. They use electronic sounds and are influenced by 'world' music (please excuse that awful phrase). Basically Yeasayer are inventive and dynamic whereas The Kooks sound like a band doing covers at a wedding. This serves to demonstrate the fact that what passes for 'Indie' over here is boring rubbish for NME reading students.

Yeasayer - 2080 Live

Biffy Clyro

I can't stop listening to Puzzle by Biffy Clyro. I had pretty much ignored the album when it came out for two reasons. Firstly the album artwork is awful. (The artwork from their second album was great, if a little bit rude). Secondly I tend to hate it when bands mellow out (I still haven't forgiven Idlewild).
The first track I heard of the album was 'Saturday Superhouse' which has a great video:



My favourite track however is 'Who's got a match'. How can any song with the lyrics "The midget is frigid I put it to you" in a strong Scottish accent be bad?


'Who's got a match' live 19-05-07

As I mentioned before, this album is a lot more mellow than Biffy's previous efforts. On paper I prefer their early sound which featured a lot of contrast between calm songs and manic shouting in a similar manor to Aereogramme. But this album is so catchy that I just can't resist. Maybe i'm getting old :)