Various
Cheffing And Blinding

16th six-tracker from everyone’s favourite non-independent indie label.

The last six-track compilation from Fierce Panda was an all American affair that featured …And You Will Know Us By The Trail Of Dead, Fiver, Hopewell, Interpol, Bright Eyes and The Fire Show, would this compilation prove that us Brits are better than those soddin’ Yanks?

Starts off brightly with Six by Seven* covering The Delgados’ ‘Pull The Wires From The Wall’, sounds awful on a computer screen, but it’s actually really good, superb in fact. Then Norwich’s KaitO deliver 3 minutes 35 seconds of beautiful female fronted sugar-coated-pop-rock which they call ‘Thwip-Side’, ok it’s not the most original of concepts but very sweet, you’ll know all the words before the songs finished. Plus they get extra points for using a sample of a toy-laser-gun-thang, bless em. Now its the return of the Munkie, the Purple Munkie that is, not much of a come back to be honest, *‘Standoffish’ sounds like an Idlewild 7” at 100rpm, which is a shame as their other new songs (which can be found on Napster) are all fabulous.

The other three songs by Jameson, Brazil and Stumble are all uninspiring pop-punk, all very samey, the three bands sound a bit like that 6th form band at your old school that might have made it if learnt how to play their instruments and could actually write some thoughtful or even interesting lyrics.

So the answer to the above question would be no, which is a bit of a shame.