The Beat Surrender

I get all manner of demo’s and promo’s from unsigned artists sent to me to review and they often fall into two categories; fairly decent indie bands or piss poor attempts at making dance or expertimental electronic music.

So it was with a fairly heavy heart that I stuck on this six track promo from Stoke on Trents Dead Wasps. A three piece line up that was influenced by everybody from The Beach Boys to Portishead certainly sounded interesting, although the name, the minimal artwork and the ‘dark and moody’ press pictures that accompanied it suggested goth-rock. Surely this was going to be a horror show for my speakers to contend with?

That heavy heart soon lifted though, openening track The Velvet Snow Whores contained confident strident vocals amongst the electro beats and it was becoming clear why they’d bagged support slots with more established artists like Client and Soho Dolls. The downtempo dance of I Go Lonely again featured vocals from Hayley Mitchell and quickly surpassed the opener. After this things managed to get even better and even more eclectic. The distorted indie of Space Theme Quandry was a treat, I Can’t Lie showcased more talented vocals from Mitchell as she metamorphosises her vocals into a blues/jazz legend a la Ella Fitzgerald.

The variety doesn’t end with those tracks either, Nothingville is nothing short of fantastic and could only be described as sounding like Elvis doing trip-hop, while things close on a more low-key yet delightfully mellow note with G and W.

The line up is completed by Gary Wildsmith and his trusty laptop, while Mikey Bacanin competes admirably with Mitchell on the vocals, they certainly look worth keeping an eye on if you like something a little bit different to the norm. I wouldn’t be at all surprised to find a big label sniffing around in the near future.

A pleasure throughout.