Hooray for bands that stay together for over their requisite two years without any kind of record deal. Stegg have been going for five years now and it shows on this fifteen track album.

With an age range spanning twenty to twenty five this isn’t your usual collection of songs knocked out in a few months. This is a musical document of growing up, changing musical tastes, and improving ability...

…Which is why “They Always Get You In The End” is such an eclectic record. In the main it’s honest to goodness indie rock, sincere and energetic. However, the variations on this theme is impressive. “Chemical Change” pulls in a UFO sounding keyboard line whilst “Please Don’t Tread On My Cheeseburger” sounds like something you’d get in a more upbeat church service. Ah yes, you read that last song title correctly, Stegg have “novelty” songs, no doubt written late at night after ten pints of cider. The other novelty track, “Mark”, successively rhymes “curry” with “hurry”, “worry”, “slurry”, “Surrey”, “flurry”, and finishes with, “threw up over Murry” (fill in the connecting sentences yourself). Simultaneously awful and brilliant, one for when you too are the wrong side of ten pints.

Other strong, more traditional, tracks here include “Taking The Tracks” (good harmonies, brooding without being boring), “Father Tooth” (very, very Shed 7 in the verses), and “Rainy Day” (very different, like Foo Fighters when they were good).

Worst bit? The first track, “Dress Rehearsal”, which is literally the sounds of a band getting ready to play. Unnecessary and off putting. But that aside this is a very strong self release and a distributor would do well to contact them. Failing that you can e-mail them at dnewholm@lineone.net for more info.