The Rakes

Only The Rakes would deliver a blistering, rhythmic and faultless set, then inadvertently blow up all the speakers in the last chord, bowing out amid a cacaphony of drums, cheers and laughter. What timing! The Rakes just might be the most likeable band in London. Bereft of his bandmates, inimitable frontman Alan Donohoe - pitched somewhere between a sergeant major, the Lord of Misrule and a bingo caller - remains resolutely onstage, seemingly about to launch into a bout of stand-up before thinking better of it.

The Rakes are the thinking person's party band - Nambucca's sofas take a battering as exciteable indie kids pogo on them to the ascerbic '22 Grand Job' with its manic, headless-chicken guitar scramble and commentary on the city worker rat-race. Compare them to who you will, no-one does contrast quite like them - an airtight, knife-edge rhythm section, guitar rushes as orchestrated by an A.D.D.-afflicted four year old with a face-full of sherbet, and wonky, cockney vocals blessedly free of any mockney affectation.

New single 'Retreat' is as sharp and direct as Philip Larkin in its observations about the mindless pull of a night on the town - "Might as well go out for the fifth night in a row" - but the Rakes don't cast their witticisms sneeringly from an intellectual pedestal. Wrapped deftly around a slew of pop gems, their lyrics are self-observational, their demeanour boisterous and affable, and there's not a suit or Hoxton hair horror in sight. The Rakes are as fun and everyman as they come.

_ Photo by Sonia Melot_