SimonFuller has been trying this freelance journalism lark for almost eight months now, but often finds himself giving up and listening to more music. As well as lapping up everything from electro-pop to symphonic metal, he also enjoys plotting convoluted novels and drinking decadent variants on coffee. He lives in Bedford. 
It has been a few years since Newcastle-upon-Tyne’s Little Comets broke onto the indie scene like a storm of well, comets. Lead single ‘One Night In October’ (below) and its follow-up ‘Adultery’ certainly made it on to a lot of playlists back in late 2009. When the time came for the band’s debut LP, ‘In Search Of Elusive Little Comets,’ to appear in January of this year, it brought with it ‘Lost Time’: an upbeat, jaunty number that really takes hold of the brain and had this writer whistling the tune all day. Or it would have, except that my whistling of the track would have been a horrific insult to the band.
Thankfully, Little Comets are back and raring to go once more. They’ve just released an EP – ‘Worry’ – and are psyched up to tour the nation in spring, as well as playing a few intimate gigs in select locations across the festive period. Members Robert and Michael Coles (lead vocals/guitar and lead guitar/secondary vocals, respectively), alongside bassist Matt Hall, were kind enough to answer a few questions in the run-up to the EPs release. No whistling was involved.
“I think [the EP] straddles quite similar lines to the [first] album in that the lyrics are fairly dark but musically it is still very major key and chirpy,” say the band. “We’ve definitely made a concerted effort to leave more space in the recordings this time though. I think with the first album we were scared to have parts of songs where nothing was happening melodically or percussively but for the EP we tried to rein ourselves in a little. We’ve been listening to a lot of older records so it probably comes from that…. hopefully it translates well and maybe comes across as a little more of a confident and mature sound.”
A quick listen to the lead track from the EP (also called ‘Worry’: these guys are apprehensive types, clearly) is a reassuring experience. The band has retained that spiky feel that was very present on the debut LP, but they’re also taking the music forward: there’s some rather jolly (it’s OK to use the word jolly, it’s Christmas) guitar work going down and the song is infectious without being irritating. Check it out at http://www.shout4music.com/video/watch-little-comets-worry/.
Something that ran as a vague theme across ‘In Search Of Elusive Little Comets’ was a political dimension to the band’s music. One track on that album, for example, was titled ‘Darling Alistair’ while another (‘Isles’) spoke of the state of Britain today, all bleak streets and ‘terror on the pavement,’ albeit not sung in a gloomy manner. Are politics and social issues a major concern for Little Comets, and do we see them on ‘Worry’?
“I don’t think there is anything overtly political on the EP,” say the guys. “A couple of [the] songs are about domestic violence and abusive relationships which I think is a really important issue, especially in times when a lot of problems dwelt upon in mass media are very macroscopic… no matter what subject a song is about it should be possible to write about it in an intelligent way, so I suppose that’s all we try to do.”
And others have noticed how the odd social concern has shaped what’s otherwise fairly upbeat music. Tour the Internet for a few minutes and you’ll quickly come across this band being described as ‘kitchen sink indie’.
“We don’t really spend time worrying about what people want to describe us as,” state a relaxed Little Comets. “I suppose that [kitchen sink indie] in itself could mean a myriad of things so it still leaves a lot open to interpretation.”
Looking to the future then, and the band’s upcoming tour, which begins in February and takes in venues in places such as Manchester, Glasgow and Brighton. Expect jauntiness and audience empathy, apparently.
“It’s a different challenge to make a song connect live as opposed to on a recording as you’re entirely reliant on the moment and the delivery,” say the band. “We try to retain the percussive elements of our songs in quite a visual way with the use of many instruments which we suspend above the stage, and with lots of backing vocals. I suppose we just try to give a really emotionally honest performance and use as much of the crowd’s energy as possible.”
Jaunty, playful and with a knack of cooking up perfectly poppy numbers, Little Comets unleash their debut album on the world. At times, this quartet recall the carefree indie of Razorlight and The Kooks, all spiky guitars and streetwise vocal delivery; just see ‘Darling Alastair’. But this bunch like to mix things up. This is music infused with an international feel, borrowing grooves from genres such as afrobeat and melding them seamlessly into the flow of the album. The LP possesses the sound of a British band unfettered by the limitations of genre and time; take ‘Adultery’ or ‘Isles’, two tracks which sound as if they could hail from the Caribbean, as opposed to the band’s native Geordieland. The latter track is one place, of several, where Little Comets are also reminiscent of MGMT, delivering toe-tapping grooves that’ll make you reach for your dancing shoes. Filled with killer hooks most chart hit writers would kill for—hello ‘Lost Time’—this debut is a master-class in warm, inventive indie-pop. Socio-political quasi-ballad ‘Intelligent Animals’, the album’s closer, is a slight mistread, but overall this is a collection of songs that could brighten the coldest February day. An infectious and electric debut.
Thirteen Senses have steadily built their fan base over the course of the last decade, and ‘The Loneliest Star’—a dreamy piece of indie-pop— is the opening shout from their third LP. Singer Will South’s near-falsetto vocals reach dizzying heights in the track’s chorus, but for a man singing about isolated stellar constellations, there’s little wallowing in self-pity here. Instead, the band opt for a somewhat muscular track, driven by a powerful combination of keys and guitars. Lyrics like “Modern man has a heart of stone/In this we are ordinary” give the track a hint of yearning, present yet never fully explored. In fact, “The Loneliest Star” hovers between being cloying and space-like and hinting that the band would like to unleash a more aggressive side, leaving the end result far from dull but a little muddled. ‘The Loneliest Star’ isn’t the electric tour-de-force it seems this band are capable of, but it’s an enjoyable trip to the heavens all the same, which should appeal to both established fans and more casual listeners.
The Whigs are quickly earning their rock stripes, touring with the Kings Of Leon for a start. And whatever you think of the latter, it’s hard to deny that The Whigs are bringing the garage rock attitude to the people. ‘Hundred/Million’ feels dirty, in that sleazy way that only rock ‘n’ roll can—think the Rolling Stones, The Young Heart Attack and early Strokes to name but a few. Parker Gispert’s vocals, delivered somewhere between caustic and laconic, fit the bill rather well, establishing a devil-may-care attitude that pervades the whole song. Meanwhile, Gispert is ably backed up by a resounding bass groove and some mean drums, which, being almost robotic, gets this single well and truly stuck in your head. ‘Hundred/Million’ isn’t quite on the money as a single: while the song has an urgency and a welcome grittiness, the band let the air out of the balloon to an extent with an unfulfilling chorus, which seeks to uplift but instead feels uninspiring. Still, this lot are worthy watching, and shaping up to be near essential for garage rockers yearning for something with more edge than the Kings Of Leon.
