Thumbing through a tattered Bible late one evening, Orlando Weeks stumbled upon the sad, strange tale of The Maccabees, a breakaway Jewish sect whose 163 BC uprising against Greek rule was brutally suppressed by Emperor Antiochus IV (or so a certain Mr Wik E. Pedia tells us).

Tragic and bloody though the story is, it failed to cut much ice with Weeks, who had just fetched up in Brighton with the intention of putting together a rock group with some mates from art-school. He did, however, think The Maccabees would make an incredibly cool band name.
“Being honest with you mate, the origins of the name didn’t interest us,” he confesses. “We were looking for something to call the band. And I thought Maccabees sounded absolutely fucking brilliant. No ideas what it means, though.”
Supersensitive chroniclers of indie bloke angst, The Maccabees today divide their time between Brighton and London, where they’re in the middle of assembling an as-yet untitled debut album. Overseeing the project is producer Stephen Street, whose credits include Blur, Badly Drawn Boy and Morrissey. It was the Moz connection, especially, which persuaded The Maccabees that Street was their man.
“The Smiths – they’re the band, aren’t they?” enthuses Weeks. “For us they are the ultimate touchstone. They defined my youth and shaped the way I look at the world. We’ve been trying to tap Stephen for Morrissey stories but he’s not giving away any trade secrets, I’m sorry to say. I suppose that’s the mark of a good producer. What goes on in the studio stays in the studio and all that.”
Like The Smiths, The Maccabees evoke a peculiarly English strain of heroic dejection. To get a sense of this, check out forthcoming single ‘First Love’, which promises to be one of the most torrid three minutes of indie pop to light up the student disco dancefloor in years.
Not that The Maccabees are in any way jingoist retro-rockers in the Damon Albarn mould. In fact, the outfit currently sparking Week’s fuse is none other than Malahide psych-crew The Immediate.
“Man, they’re such a great, great band,“ he gushes. “They played Brighton recently and absolutely blew me away. They’re doing things nobody else is even attempting nowadays. Say 'hello' to them for me, will you?” Consider it done, compadre.

'First Love' is released by Fiction on February 28.