THE NEEDLES Under The City (Dangerous)
"Under The City" is a four track EP from a Scottish quartet who have been tipped by the NME as part of the Glasgow scene, alongside Dogs Die In Hot Cars and (saints preserve us) Franz Ferdinand. They make a noise that would have been termed new wave a generation ago, a three minute nosebleed blizzard of guitars/keyboards/bass/drums fighting a torrent of clever lyrics that will induce a nostalgic lump in the throat of anyone who felt popular music should peaked round about "This Year's Model".
And when the verbals are sufficiently sharpened - "Back Where I Belong", which packs an astonishing density of invention into 150 seconds, and "Johnny Victory" - The Needles can be satisfyingly Costelloesque, certainly more than Declan McManus is these days, although I misheard the lines "Those that got got a digital box/And those that don't don't matter" as "Those that got got a digibox" the first time I played it, and that clumsy extra syllable rankles on every listen. Old enough to be new to kids these days, "Under The City" is, partially at least, very interesting.