Sweet Sweet Lies
Album: The Hare, The Hound And The Tortoise
Label: Something Nothing
Tracks: 11
Website: www.myspace.com/sweetsweetliesmusic

If you're in the market for a New Favourite Band - and even if you're not - then you could do much worse than audition Brighton-based men in suits Sweet Sweet Lies. This is music made in a serious frame of mind by blokes who must get it right or not bother. Not that it's at all po-faced, but they mean it, maaan… At once purposeful and fleet of foot, it skims not only the surface but deep mines the depths of a classic record collection and finds space to add something of its own.

Thus, mariachi trumpets decorate Brechtian melodramas that Scott Walker would once have craved and trebly Hank Marvin guitar figures lead rhythm tracks worthy of the Tennessee Three. Dual singers Dominic Von Trapp and Michael Hayes swap lines and swing moods with aplomb, their phrasing, tone and delivery gladly acknowledging debts to the likes of Nick Cave, Ray Davies, Guy Garvey, Martin Carthy, David Bowie and Suggs.

Their lyrics, particularly on the bittersweet Capital of Iceland and the touchingly acerbic Overrated Girlfriend, recall some of Jarvis Cocker's woodchip on the wall observations for Pulp's best selling albums. Lizbet Blue manages a Costello croon with a suitably tart libretto; while Valentine proffers a waltz time signature and the dramatic sweep of a sarcy-sincere Morrissey.

Brutal, beautiful, Bible black and disquietingly amusing, if there's any kind of God, this album should work wonders for SSL.

Nick Churchill
www.thegranvillechambers.co.uk