How do you follow a launch gig by the legendary (Brit Lifetime Achievement Award winner) Paul Weller? You put on one of Britain’s freshest and most exciting new bands – The Automatic. Following close on the heels of The Arctic Monkeys, these four lads from South Wales are set to be one of the biggest bands of 2006/7.
Live, they are quite simply brilliant. With keyboard player Pennie managing to use every square inch of the stage - including the top of the speaker stacks. They are still playing the odd small venue/festival over the coming months, but with a Kaiser Chiefs tour and a sure fire hit album to released in Spring – catch them in a small venue now. It's worth it.
The Automatic were supported by Polytechnic and Hordes. Both support bands were a match for The Automatic – which says a huge amount about the quality and depth of British talent coming through.
POLYTECHNIC came together as THE CONVERSATION in March 2005, playing to a packed house at Manchester's Academy 3 within days of forming. Since then the band have gigged around Manchester, earning a rapidly growing fanbase and a reputation for high-energy performances.
The band's first self-release, the 'Loose Tongues EP', showcased their vivid blend of fiery indie guitar-rock and melodic punk-pop, gaining media interest and radio airplay in the North West and abroad. The new 'Running Out Of Ideas EP' sounds at once both fashionably retro and unpretentiously modern. This is a new breed of youthful power-punk-pop from the urban bohemian sprawl of south Manchester - big, bright, dynamic music that defies influence, and doesn't need a set of matching skinny ties to look and sound stylish.
The band started life two years ago as a two-piece playing Krautrock-influenced experimental music. In 2004, Dylan and Yuri took a break from a grim northern winter to spend time in Devon, where they discovered a love of melody and a hectic drummer, Tim, who dismissed their early work as 'heroin music'. Denny returned from living in Berlin to join the group earlier this year, and POLYTECHNIC was born as a four-piece. Thankfully, the odd shades of angst and gloom still lurk beneath the sparkly surface.
NME
Working the same musical co-ordinates as The Magic Numbers, Polytechnic's inoffensive, happy-sad jangle-pop could easily see them sent for a placement to Indie Siberia. Yet 'Cold Hearted Business' is their greatest moment yet, a furious two-fingers to their detractors, all disguised within a tune to get radio programmers whooping. "I was only saying something I thought was relevant!" coos singer Dylan - polite to a fault. Old-school thrills, and all the better for it.
