The Scaramanga Six
Horrible Face

Horrible Face is a big bellied bastard of a 'ballad' from The Scaramanga Six, still ploughing their label-running, scenester-defying furrow up in Yorkshire. Over the last year or so, the Six have roped in lost Cardiacs legend Tim Smith as producer and commuted to soft southern Salisbury to record their latest album, Cabin Fever, from which this is taken. The result is a chunky in-yer-face noise that, perhaps for the first time in a large and enviable body of work, does justice to the band's monstrously fierce playing and their sense of drama. It's a brilliant album.

We whinging critics who hate everything successful regularly invent fantasy worlds, so our personal heroes can triumph. In mine, Scaramanga Six* are a British Queens Of The Stone Age. They have the testosterone and the relentless outsider determination, while they're effortlessly adult next to all those skinny kids. But I've surely written that before and the fantasy remains just that. So file 'em in "deserve to be famous". But dammit, that's a bulging folder. And catch them at Truck* this year because it's rare to see them anywhere near south of the Watford Gap. (though Oxford is above the Watford Gap? - Ed)