Picks for 2008

(Morning Star, Friday 04 January 2008)

Operator, Please
FORMED specifically to compete in a school battle of the bands, Operator, Please are the sort of band who might star in your favourite off-centre comedy film - think of them onstage at Napoleon Dynamite or Donnie Darko's school dance.

A fabulous Aussie quintet with a nice line in musical magic tricks, Tim Commandeur on drums, Sarah Gardiner on keyboards, Ashley McConnell on bass and classically trained Taylor Henderson on violin are like an aural explosion, a sensory thrill ride of bombast and adrenalin, all wrapped up in a teenaged package.

Now known the world over, the band recently charmed Radio 2 doyens Radcliffe and Maconie with single Leave It Alone, a whooping and frankly dazzling example of what the kids can do given their space.

Signed to Brille, their debut Yes Yes Vindictive promises to give a right kick up the arse to the lugubrious R'n'B that has made its home at the top of the chart in recent months. An album standout certainly has to be the excellently named Just A Song About Ping Pong. Oh, and they won the battle of the bands, by the way.

Noah and the Whale
NOAH and the Whale have been making a splash - sorry - on the live music circuit recently, garnering praise from critics and generally setting the scene for a 2008 takeover.

The London-based lads - Charlie on vocals and guitar, Doug on drums, Tom on fiddle and bassist Matt - have made an impressive fist of marrying traditional folk with their own pop sound and coming out sounding surprisingly far from a dog's dinner.

The melodic melancholy of most modern alternative pop combos is all present and correct, but with a nice twist in the charismatic leadership of intense frontman Charlie.

The band have a confidence which belies their youth and their take on folk means that they're less "swigging lager behind the bike sheds" and more "raiding your parents' record collection for some Woody Guthrie."

Tied now to the painfully cool indie label Young and Lost Club, the band have discovered the strength of bare production on string-pinned ballad Peaceful The World Lays Me Down and their growing maturity can only mean special things in the year ahead. There she blows.

The Courteeners
DRINKERS from that invariably poisoned chalice of celebrity recommendation, Manchester's The Courteeners have been tipped for the top by an axe-wielding Manc with a career to envy, John Squire, and supported the Coral on tour.

Drifting down the same river as the Gallagher brothers, mouthy Liam Fray on vocal and guitar heads up the quartet, with Daniel "Conan" Moores on guitar, Marc Cuppello on bass and drummer Michael Campbell.

The band make generic rock, the like of which has music fans foaming at the mouth - see Oasis, Arctic Monkeys, The Twang - but, with the very spirit of working-class Northerners lifting them above the mundane, they are bound to be charting higher and higher in the next year.

Highlights include Fallowfield Hillbilly and Aftershow, as well as single What Took You So Long - mercifully not a cover of Emma Bunton's pop "classic."
The Courteeners will be big in 2008, whether you like it or not, so buckle up.