ET Recommends - 18: Kids Love Lies

The 'Count In My Head' EP is like everything thrown in together.

Brash guitars, synchronised handclaps, "whoa-oh-oh's" like Kate Nash sings them, chirpy and bouncy and racing along at way too fast a lick - indeed, this is what I like to imagine the State Of The Art sounds like in 2009, although let's face it that's far closer to a dismal amalgam of Bon Iver and Bon Iver. Mostly, I remain surprised at the obviously quite major influence that Bis had upon everybody: pleasing, though, cos if you slowed this down by 45rpm it might be Polly Scattergood and then everyone would be walking around moping with a long face instead of energetically chewing on space dust.

There again, Bis were Huggy Bear made more palatable, with a little sprinkling of sci-fi dust.

Oh, perhaps The Cribs are a force for the Good Side somewhere in that great morass of indentikit indie bands? But... you know... this has melody and energy and a Voice I Like and dynamics and the occasional splatter of finger-paint. And once again, I'm writing this blind with no recourse to context or press releases (I have no idea where this music came from) or even Google Search, and trust me that is way liberating, experiencing this like this.

Whoops, we've over-shot into an acoustic Jam outtake, Weller sounding approximately 15 years old. No, wait. I'm not embarrassed.