CD Review: Guarded By Robots, Fashion Tips From Myra

Kids, eh - what are they like? Ever since the reemergence of indie and Britpop, it seems that almost every youngish band wants to churn out guitar anthems based on pissed-up nights or how they fucked it all up.

When the indie scene did begin to big up again with artists like Kaiser Chiefs and Kasabian leading the way, too many people have followed. The constantly-repeated formula must be soon to implode as the genre becomes as laughable as Britney Spears. Slowly but surely, attention is being drawn away from guitar bands and the rise of the singer-songwriter is emerging. Good, if you like that sort of thing. But what else is there? Well, it involves a bit of a search but looking for quality stuff is worth the wait. And we did this, by accident of course, on a night out. A club night with a band is usually a bit wank and we tend to ignore them. But Guarded By Robots captured our attention. So much so, that we bought a copy of their EP Fashion Tips From Myra.

Despite the sound system being cack we were still able to witness three young things taking to the makeshift stage like they had done so a million times before. A frenzied mixture of sounds floated around a packed sweaty room. A crap band is usually a chance for the paying punters a chance to slip off to the bar. But when this doesn’t happen you know you’re getting through to someone. If you are unsigned, don’t belong to any sort of scene and only have your own resources for publicity, connecting with someone is a remarkable achievement.

So what made us buy a CD that was presumably burnt in one of the band member's PC hours before the gig? Well, that little bit of determination and initiative had been used. Easily, Guarded By Robots could have just copied a few discs and plonked them in a case with some track listings. Yes, this was done, but it was the addition of uniquely handpainted artwork that swung it for us. It could have been done off a printer for a lot less, but seeing a little bit of thought put into a release shows determination and the imagination to capture their audience.

The easiest thing for us to do would be to tell you to go and listen to a mix of Arcade Fire, Explosions In The Sky, 65daysofstatic and Hundred Reasons. They are the comparisons we can make, but why would we recommend a carbon copy of something already on the market? As we’ve suggested, this is what happened to indie music. But Guarded By Robots are fresh and different-sounding and as the band progress with live and recording experience, they will surely churn out songs that will make people wonder “what was that?”

These young guns are probably working in mundane jobs and don’t have time to practise 24/7 like bigwig professional artists. A lot of established bands haven't grasped our attention like they have, and if they can do this is based on a limited budget, they are surely in line for bigger things.

Opening track What Fireworks Are For has a thrusting guitar lick that quickly fades into a gentle and subtle melody. Too many people will find one catchy hook and repeat it for three minutes (Seven Nation Army), but this ever-changing song manages to keep our attention with catchy postmodern lyrics that somehow evoked some sort of thought in us! Almost questioning the fact that if you could explain some of your life decisions to people, would it really change anything? We don’t know, maybe we’re reading too much into things.

There's the added touch of beatboxing thrown into the mix in Me Vs Traffic - it’s an experimental touch that comes off nicely. Whilst it isn’t used throughout, it is subtle enough to be noticed and not overused. The sounds could almost be mistaken for ones produced by people like 65daysofstatic but with the addition of vocals, the sometimes empty feel left by instrumental post rock is not at all sensed here.

We don’t know why the band are named the way they are, but we can tell you they can't take themselves too seriously. Some songs can often have ridiculous names – just look at most of Aphex Twin’s Analord releases, but one track here is brilliantly called Dave Benson-Phillips. Our love for this track shines even more because of its homage to one of the greatest kid's TV show presenters ever. Despite being together for a short period of time, encouraging things are emerging from this three-piece. All of the songs on this EP have their own positives to draw upon. We await further releases to see what they come up with next.