The Fairies Band, a bunch of London dandies with names such as Twinkle and Tinsel, open this split single with the memorably monickered 'Pink Socks Rock (Fuck My Hole)'. It's an exuberant stop-start, fast-and-loose number that veers back and forth between taut and flailing, full of snappy, tick-tock rhythms and sharp-edged guitars. It’s kinda reminiscent of Elastica (quirky, rhythmic, lots of dual-vocal harmonies, that same feeling of working to a hey-what-happens-if-we-do-this template) but wilder and more ramshackle. Their second, completely contrasting track 'Colonel Bright' is a rippling acoustic song, far more melodic and gentle than 'Pink Socks…' in its telling of the title character weaving her way home drunk, "her fishnets in shreds". The Fairies Band are equally competent playing melancholy acoustic ditties as they are flashing gratuitous obscenity and silliness over ridiculously catchy tunes with a scrambled, good-natured energy, though I get the impression they prefer the latter activity...

Cambridge-based nihilism/cabaret anti-crusaders The Vichy Government are a very different beast, with vocal delivery sliding from deadpan statement to laconic sneer over the creaking of minimalist keyboards. We have here a biting dismissal of plastic surgery in 'The Immortals', contemplating a time when plastic surgery sees people rotting from the inside out as their innards decay before their artificial skins die: "The silicon melts/And drips out of their arse". Slower number 'Oliver Cromwell in Weimar Berlin' ("A Puritan lost in the city of sin") drips mockery from every note; it could be a critique of uptight Puritanism, or of mindless pleasure seeking, or of both the above, or just a massive joke at the the listener’s expense. VG's songs are cutting and vicious, spitting contempt and derision at all things both modern and ancient through a spoken-word jeering of a vocal. And, incidentally, through what, if dressed differently, could be some damn good pop songs - it’s just that VG heavily disguise the medium under the bile and bitterness of the message. Who needs pretty melodies and dance-floor filler when your songs are loaded with so much intelligent bitterness and black spite that it crystallises on the edges of the notes?

Wild-eyed escapist energetic silliness twinned with black and biting cynical realism. A seemingly strange choice of split-single partners, seeing as their melodic styles and ideas of what music should be differ so wildly. But then, that’s a good thing in many ways - how better to persuade people to listen to something they’d never usually try than releasing it on the same record as something totally different? Risk falling for something completely different at filthylittleangels.com, or alternatively you can buy the record from either The Fairies Band or The Vichy Government.