Band of the Week: The Standards

Our guest reviewer's recommendations...

This twitchy, highly addictive London (via t’north) trio have been knocking around the city’s dustier haunts for a few years now, but with debut single ‘ Out of the Fire’ finally lurched upon us, we’re at last able to bask in their mature pop soundscape. The track is a fumbling menace of perfectly crafted tunage, highly styled and wonderfully catchy, setting them apart from a big section of the new-music-elite.

They’re not skinny-jeaned upstarts, nor Radio 2 seeking granddads, rather a distracted mix of the two positions. Darn catchy pop done with both vigour and method, which could mean contentment or rejection from both camps. It’s an interesting notion, no?

What The Standards serve with this much awaiting debut release is a glimpse of a band who know how to write good music, structure it into something vaguely modern, lavish it with staggeringly kitsch guitars and package it in a way which seems wholly fresh.

Other track ’ 11 Dimensions’ is more of a Disney ballad, scored with a Reverend and the Makers blade, flipping with an almost croon-like vocal and yet more of their sharp, Franzy bass-notes. These here Standards are possibly an indie afterthought, but maybe something far deeper. We await further clues.

The Standards on mySpace