"The Naked Dancing E.P." - Honeytrap (2007)

On the back of the wave of hype preceding rattling scally upstarts The Enemy, in recent months the NME has finally been wising up to the fact that – shock, horror! - there may in fact be other music scenes which exist outside of Camden. One such community to have garnered mild scrutiny is the burgeoning scene right here in the Midlands. There are any number of great bands trawling around the area – sharply-dressed dandies Envy & Other Sins and knockabout art-punks The Ripps to name just two – but for me the pick of the litter are a trio of acts not averse to indulging in a spot of cross-pollination. All based in and around Leamington, the bassist in arch popsters Honeytrap also plays brass for Stupid, Stupid, Stupid & Steve (for my money, the best punk band in Britain, signed or otherwise) - the guitarist of whom fronts garage-rock goliaths Young Meteors (notable, among other things, for a stupefyingly brilliant song entitled Is It? It Is!). These are what I used to affectionately term ‘the record store bands’, since at one time it seemed like you could walk into any local music shop and find at least one member working behind the counter.

However, while many local acts seem content to plough the much-furrowed terrain of haircuts and house-parties, the former are an entirely different proposition. Fresh from their excellent debut single Andy the Freefaller - released, as is this latest offering, on Coventry’s lynchpin indie label Tough Love – Honeytrap continue to impress here with a quartet of songs which have already caught the attention of XFM and Steve Lamacq. Born from the ashes of Mawda (whose memorable debut release Monkey and the Band was a real winner with its stop-start rhythm and lazy, hip hop-flavoured vocals), their sound is difficult to pin down. Equal parts The Rakes’ post-punk spikiness, fiery Pixies-esque frenzy and The Smiths’ histrionic melodrama, their songs are imbued with a sweetness capable of rearing its head at even the messiest of moments (most notably on the hopelessly endearing Spotlight, with its adorable refrain of “You taught me everything I know”).

The band has three separate vocalists: gangly guitarist Big Dan (yelping, snotty), bassist Matt Triangle (nasal, lethargic) and the distinctive Little Dan (yodelling, just plain weird). None of them can apparently sing in tune, but it doesn’t matter one jot – when the mismatched troika gets going, the result is a blast of energy so frantic that you can’t help but sit up and take note. Chuck a whimsical violin into the mix and you have a surefire candidacy for upholding the tradition of great British eccentrics propagated by the likes of The Delgados, Mystery Jets and The Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band - imagine if the Kaiser Chiefs were half as off-the-wall as they purport to be and you’re still not even anywhere close to how genuinely bizarre this band sounds.

The title track is an instantly likeable reworking of the closing section from Blondie’s One Way or Another, complete with barking call-and-response vocals which pay homage to their influences with knowing charm (“She likes the Smiths / I like the Pixies / I think that Morrissey / is so grumpy!”). Ragged, rollicking and never less than totally compelling, the song rips along at furious speed, changing time signatures whenever it gets bored and throwing the listener curve-balls just when it looks like they might have a handle on whatever the hell’s going on. Twitchy, energetic and relentless, this is what The Futureheads might sound like if they were any, y’know, good.

Second track I Don’t Know How it Begins is an aimless daydream of a song, drifting along in a sea of off-kilter melodies and gently discordant feedback. The wonderfully awkward Spotlight is a real standout, opening with a jarring blast of machine-gun drumming which soon gives way to a mournfully tender refrain that zeroes in on your heart and refuses to let go. However, the best moment on the entire EP comes right at the end when its twisting, insidious closer Mussolini’s Son descends into an accelerating polka which the band hold together with admirable finesse. All caterwauling strings and woozy Hungarian folk, it’s an inventive conclusion to an EP which showcases a band bursting with wit, vitality and – most encouragingly of all – ideas.

There’s a good chance that by the time you read this the limited run of 500 copies will have sold out, but for those unlucky enough to miss the boat the EP is available for download on iTunes. I suspect that in their own odd little way these are all love songs of a sort, though the band are so bright-eyed and off-beam that they’d never be crass enough to admit it. They’ve come a hell of a long way from the band who I seem to recall once stumbling through a bad version of The Vines’ Get Free to ten people in Warwick Students’ Union – this is a fantastic release which, with any justice, will surely act as a gateway to bigger and better things.