Album: The Beautiful New Born Children

Not even their own record company knows much about The Beautiful New Born Children, whose album arrived at their offices as an unsolicited demo lacking even contact details. What they have since managed to glean about the band only serves to further muddy the waters: one of the guitarists is usually a bassist, the drummer was a guitarist, and the bassist is married to the singer - which all sounds like the start of a puzzle. But there's nothing puzzling about the music, which eschews embellishment in favour of a 1,000-volt jolt of brash punk energy. On "OK, Allright, Fine", their loose panache and formal bite is a cross between the Stones and Wire, while the seven-minute "Up and Down and Round and Round" recalls The Jesus and Mary Chain in a hurry. The prime influence through these nine tracks is the The Fall. Not only does the vocalist's snarl render some lyrics incomprehensible, but the bits one can make out of tracks such as "A Good Dose" and "I Do Too" seem largely concerned with drug use, set to punkabilly riffing à la "Mr Pharmacist".

DOWNLOAD THIS: 'Do the Do', 'OK, Allright, Fine', 'A Good Dose'