The Warlocks

What would be your ideal soundtrack for the summer?

Mine would probably include the obvious suncharmers like the Beach Boys' 'Good Vibrations' and Groove Armada's 'At The River' spiced with the blissful comedown of My Bloody Valentine's 'Soon' and Spacemen 3's 'Rollercoaster', proving that we don't all need cheap Thrills to transform a wet Wednesday in Weston-Super-Mare into a sunny Saturday on the West Coast of America. But enough about overrated Travis** tribute bands...

Because there are some new kids on the block making a brave claim to the throne of post-rock without being, well 100% post-rock_**, if you catch my drift.

Ad Infinitum may be three in number and not much older than that in years, but their sweeping soundscapes evoke a time when Mogwai probably couldn't name a single member of Blur whilst rivalling the mighty Epic 45 by turning David into Goliath without going through the rigmarole of deed poll.

Critics of the post-rock phenomenon argue that there's only so far you can go using the same fast-slow, quiet-loud dynamic, but it takes Ad Infinitum** all of 20 minutes to tear up the old boundaries and replace them with a crystalline ingenuity that'll wake messrsBraithwaite and co. from their deep slumber and actually force them to make an effort on their next long player.

Popular opinion would suggest that The Warlocks evoke equal amounts of love, hate and indifference, and on a hot summer's night in July it's difficult to construct a favourable argument as to the need for seven black clad stoners.

However, when The Warlocks** plug in their instruments the pendulum swings dramatically and that initial feeling of malevolence is soon eschewed by a captivating glow.

Yeah, they look miserable as fuck (although frontman Bobby Hecksher does crack the odd smile) and some of their songs appear to be neverending, but nevertheless that proves to be their ultimate raison d'etre. The Warlocks live experience sees reverb-laden mantras like 'Inside Outside' and 'Cosmic Letdown' become different beasts entirely on a stage to how they'd sound in the studio, and that is surely what going to see a band in the flesh is all about, right?