The Charlatans: ‘I Never Want An Easy Life If Me And He Were Ever To Get There’ (Beggars Banquet) / Echobelly: ‘Insomniac’ (Fauve)

Reminiscent of classic Beatles and Rolling Stones with some powered keyboard work to boot ‘’Easy Life’’ is yet another song culled from The Charlatans forthcoming album Up To Our Hips which attempts to come to terms with the circumstances of band member Rob Collins’ bizarre arrest as he aided a friend in an aborted off-licence hold-up. It also happens to be their best release in a long while.

Echobelly have been compared favourably to The Smiths but I also detect traces of Penetration’s Pauline Murray in singer Sonya Aurora Madan’s vocal bent, as if to remind us once again that English Indie music seems to be on an upward curve at the moment largely thanks to an re-injection of Punk values into the traditional pop mainstream.