In the beginning.... 2003

After the void of Britpop had horrifically let in the nu-metal regime at the turn of the millennium, it took an American band to show the Brits how to play their own game. The Strokes were both a blessing and a disaster for British music - it reinvented intelligent guitar music but at the same time slammed the Brits for letting themselves get in such a mess that the resurrection had to be pre-empted across the pond.

The response was swift, however, as 2002 acted as the bedding ground for a new wave of British guitar music that would act as the foundation for the indie explosion we're still experiencing. When The Libertines released Up the Bracket in October 2002, the album may have skimmed the lower end of the top 40, but more significantly, it ushered in a new literary era of British guitar music. The Coral soon followed, Placebo struck success with Sleeping with Ghosts and then Athlete arrived.

Listening back to Vehicles and Animals four years on is a joy. It is an utterly superb album; wistful melancholy that exuded euphoria. You only had to witness them at the V festival that year to gauge just how much impact their debut album had been. Yeah, so some of the lyrics weren't exactly challenging - "fly to El Salvador; I don't know why and I don't know what for" but it didn't matter. The Brits were back on top. And Athlete were serious contenders to be one of those at the front of the pack with Pete & Carl.

In the same whirlwind in which it came it almost unravelled itself. The Libs twisted tore their love apart at the height of their popularity, and even a number one album couldn't help that in September 2004. In fact, The Libertines was harrowing in some points. We delved into a conversation between two embattled friends that we really perhaps shouldn't have. And then there was Athlete, whose February 2005 album Tourist was a retreat further into the mist of despair, and the end result was a number one album, but a drastic decline in form.

The Brits had fought back against their American counterparts, despite heavyweight competition from Foo Fighters and Green Day. And within a year of doing so, it was back on the precipice. The Killers were lurking with Mr Brightside and White Stripes were always ready to take the initiative. And so the Brits looked desperately sideways, backwards, upwards, downwards and dug out Kaiser Chiefs, The Futureheads and Bloc Party. Saved, again.

From the uncertainty of appeal surrounding British guitar music after the public, painful explosion of The Libertines' Arcadian dream - uncertainty which unfairly claimed the record contracts of Dogs and The Paddingtons, there was salvation. Since then, British music has been unchecked in a meteoric rise. Yes, American indie still breaks through but it's struggled especially after Arctic Monkeys blew all preconceptions out of the water. It's not even the mainstream that needs appraisal... the undercurrent of British indie bands is very strong at present - The Rifles, Milburn, The Holloways, The Maccabees.

The danger now is the saturation of guitar bands. Of course, musical epochs move in cycles, and one suspects the British 'indie' revival since 2003 is not going to last forever. Even now it seems to be moving towards (or should that be back) to the rave culture of the early 1990s. Whether Klaxons, Hadouken!, et al can extract enough from the new rave movement to create the new world order remains to be seen, but even they owe much to the past four years, and must not be forgotten that when two likely lads from Bethnal Green decided to take up the challenge, it opened the floodgates to surround us with the talent that we enjoy today.

VWF @ Buffalo, 16 November

"Now's the time, If I'm right then we've come to the end of the line"

Future offerings:
Foals @ Clwb Ifor Bach, 26 November

Single Reviews: Make Model, Bearsuit etc

Bearsuit - Foxy Boxer

DeVotchKa - You Love Me

Make Model - The Was

Munch Munch - Wedding

Some album mutterings coming soon.

The Pigeon Detectives @ Sin City, Swansea, 13 November

Floozey woozey moosic in the pretty shitty city

Future offerings:
Foals @ Clwb Ifor Bach, 26 November

The Cribs @ The Great Hall, Cardiff, 9 November

Not close and not personal, but a review all the same

Future offerings:
The Pigeon Detectives @ Sin City, Swansea, 13 November
VWF @ Buffalo, Cardiff, 16 November
Foals @ Clwb Ifor Bach, 26 November

...and maybe some CD reviews. Oh gosh, how sexy.

Viva Machine @ Clwb Ifor Bach, 3 November

Read my verbal musings on demand by pressing the mouse button

The Dykeenies @ Sin City, Swansea, 1 November

Read the review here

Songs To Drive Cars By?

Driving is always, nay ALWAYS, made better by the quality of music coming out of the speakers. Especially if there is a middle-lane hogger coming into view and the blood pressure starts to rise. So, having spent many days during the summer driving long hours to distant places - Swansea, Cardiff, Droylsden, Crawley (not that far, but ahem, M25), it made me think about what would be my ultimate 20-track mixtape (CD, you know what I mean).

Given that I'm currently about to face a proverbial firing squad, I thought I'd actually put my thoughts into pure, hard copy. It's a bit like picking a fantasy football team, knowing that two weeks down the line you'll wish you'd waited for that last-day-of-summer-signing that would make your line-up even better.

It's going to be contentious whatever. Jeremy Clarkson for one won't agree - there's no heavy stuff on it... well there might be, I still haven't fully thought this through. I was hoping it would take me where I'd want to go (not Gravesend). Anyway, there are no rules - no limits to age of track, no limits on amount of times a band is included etc. That's not to say anything goes, because I'm not including cheese. So like the hardest of anti-climax, here we go - 20 songs for killing an hour in a car:

1. The Cribs - Men's Needs
2. The Maccabees - X-Ray
3. Hadouken! - That Boy, That Girl
4. Bloc Party - The Prayer (Hadouken! mix)
5. Metric - Monster Hospital (MSTRKRFT mix)
6. VWF - Burst Into Flames
7. Klaxons - Atlantis to Interzone (Hadouken! mix)
8. The Cribs - Hey Scenesters!
9. Manic Street Preachers - You Love Us (Heavenly mix)
10. Those Dancing Days - Those Dancing Days
11. The Rifles - She's Got Standards
12. Foals - Hummer
13. Reverend and the Makers - He Said He Loved Me
14. Pigeon Detectives - I Found Out
15. The Clash - Safe European Home
16. Dogs -Tuned To A Different Station
17. Metro Riots - Butcher of Hollywood
18. The Sunshine Underground - Put You In Your Place
19. Los Campesinos - You! Me! Dancing
20. The Dykeenies - Stitches

Hmmm, well there we are - my idea of an ultimate driving mixtape. Yeah, that didn't feel totally fulfilling - it'll probably change within a month. But that would be the playlist if I was setting off into the sun tomorrow. But seeing as I'm not, I don't really need to say much more on the matter.