We’re over the post-Christmas slump by now and there’s actually been some good music released recently. A welcome side effect of the eighties revival (what shall we call it, new new romanticism?) has been the re-emergence of goth- proper goth, that is, not the kiddies in Slipknot hoodies that were so prevalent throughout the nineties. This is the new tune from Kiko.

Thanks to A Very Public Sociologist for that one. The Foals have just released their debut album and it’s damn good, despite containing none of their three previous excellent singles (Hummer, Mathletics and Cassius). This track, however, is on it.

A lot of people are saying that the Foals’ original demos are far superior to the officially released versions. This is something that’s been said about a lot of bands, Arctic Monkeys being the well known example. Personally I was very disappointed at the way Battle’s dark guitar/synth pop demos ended up sounding like Coldplay songs when recorded for their first album. Partly I think this loss of character is down to the ridiculous amount of processing on modern studio recordings, partly down to record company suits trying to interfere in artistic decisions, and partly due to the fact that music creates associations in the brain, so when you fall in love with a song and then hear it recorded in a different way it’s unsettling.

The Whip also have their debut album out, and they haven’t left off any of their previous excellent singles. There are no less than five tunes on here which are already established on the nation’s dance floors. This is Trash.

I thought the Young Knives were terribly pretentious when I first heard them, but they’re starting to grow on me. How about this one?

You can’t help but wonder how long it’s going to take the post-punk revival to die. We Are Scientists have released a second album too, but it’s nowhere near as impressive as their first. Finally, I was going to post the video for the new single from Be Your Own Pet, but the only one up is the official one with embedding disabled so you’ll just have to follow this link and watch it on YouTube. Good stuff.