[per request, i've done away w/ zipping mp3s for now. for the exchange, see the comments for the previous entry.]

we are scientists - "the great escape" (from the with love and squalor lp, available for preorder as an import here.)

i think the britpress bubble has once again burst. after a good year or so run, the bands they've been espousing lately--hard-fi, the rakes, clor, dogs, the magic numbers, the arctic monkeys--have been, bar one great single, busts to my ears.

here's another one, then, and here's their great single. it's all v. much in the franz/bloc party mold w/ a little new york scene to it and a lot of california in the vocals. yes, we are scientists are like the killers and the bravery--patience, patience!--another american band that the brits take a stronger liking to than we do. unlike those bands, though, i think they have a song, in "the great escape," worth listening to. no ska pasts, 80's keyboards or bad haircuts (well ... ) on display here, just good old-fashioned indie disco.

my time is short today--i've got to leave in a minute and i'll be away all day--so i'll let the nme say it. aside from being practical for me, it's a useful exercise for you, the reader, in spotting hyperbole. me, i love the comparisons to other bands and the killer, pardon the pun, final line.

"I've got a great idea!" yelps Keith, who is the singer, midway through. From the evidence of this, that idea was to grow themselves into one of those angular post-punkish bands that youngsters are so fond of nowadays, but make them funkier than Ferdinand, more agitated than Bloc Party, cooler than The Bravery and almost exactly as good with a one-liner as The Futureheads.

Yes, so We Are Scientists sound like a lot of other bands around at the moment; the simple truth is they're way better than most of them. They certainly piss all over Hot Hot Heat, who you might mistake them for if you were wearing era-muffs (although in WAS' world of the strange, you probably already are). 'The Great Escape' is their second single and thumps in on what, weirdly enough, sounds like an art-rock rewrite of 'Mono' by Courtney Love for about five seconds before getting even weirder. Like the drummer (whose name is Michael) playing about seven times faster than anybody else. And the whole thing winding up into this screeching bit of guitar assault so astonishingly high-pitched that it makes domestic animals start humping the nearest Sky box. Yet ultimately we can't ever hope to describe them half as fabulously as these three strange individuals describe themselves: "a three-tusked mastadon; a triple mohawk; a flight from New York to LA with three stopovers".

Get ready to love this lot.