My Scarlet Darling, based in the UK but with two of their three members originating in Australia, take the angular pop of The Jam, the lyrical directness of Paul Westerburg and the whip-smart guitar menace of Dinosaur Jr., forcing them together and reconstructing the still-twitching nerves into a thrillingly-twisted vision of pop music.  Exhilarating songs with ambiguous yet seemingly-obvious messages, supposedly about death, paranoia, disillusionment and rejection, possibly about none of those at all.  And rarely does insecurity resonate so strongly. This band sings about the ways in which life can break you down, yet they never give in to cliché or despair. It’s about emotional resilience and the ways in which you can manage to hang on, and it makes for powerful listening. Sometimes, joy can be found in the grimmest of stories.

Like the opening track…‘This Is Not A Test’.  First blood to My Scarlet Darling, with a wide-eyed and wired mash-up of pulverising drums and spiky, paranoid guitars, underpinned by a monstrously heavy bass sound.  The band blend searing, bruised energy and disturbed loudhailer samples with Andrew Petersen’s urgent call-to-arms vocal. It’s a fierce, powerful track, and it manages to stake out their territory in just over two-and-a-half minutes.  If that sound has a name, it's defiance.  Mess with them at your own risk.

The other tracks resonate just as strongly with that indefinable spirit that drives great bands on – the weary resignation of ‘Anaesthetise’ and the end-of-relationship subject matter on ‘Rattle My Cage’ and ‘Under Siege’ contrast with the exuberance of ‘The Last Time’ and the grim determination of ‘Erased’. 

Make no mistake; this is not the shallow fashion-driven immaturity that’s shoved down your throat as this week’s next big thing. This is the sound of something substantial, songwriting of the highest order and music unsullied by compromise.  My Scarlet Darling may well be the next new band to grab you by the throat and demand you listen.

My Scarlet Darling’s debut album, ‘Scars Of The Discarded’, will be released in the UK in January 2006. In the meantime, this pre-release copy will let you in on what’s coming.  The band are been playing shows all over the UK – keep an eye out for them.