The Longpigs: "The Sun Is Often Out"

Pretend you have a farm where music was cattle. Now pretend you took Radiohead and mated it with a late-90's British kid-pop group -- let's say Ash or Shed Seven -- and they had a calf. And it was slightly mutated. This youngster would be the Longpigs. And all of its bodily functions would come together to produce its first album, THE SUN IS OFTEN OUT. This calf would grow and grow, but you wouldn't want to slaughter it. Instead, you'd keep it as a pet. You would be forgiven for mistaking Crispin Hunt's vocals for those of Thom Yorke (aka, lead singer of the aforementioned Radiohead). His voice has that same strained quality, and his attitude pulsates out of the speakers; but, he is obviously a less tortured soul than Mr. Yorke. The British like to write about everyday life. They take the ordinary, mundane and uninteresting and turn it into a song. And many times it works. In "On And On", Hunt sings: I wish you would leave me/and I wish you would go/I wish you didn't need me/and I wish I didn't know. So simple, yet so true. We all nod our heads, we all know what he means, we've all been there, we all get it. This is the closest these guys get to a love song. With its acoustic strummings and four-part harmonizing it seems like it would be out of place in this collection of the raucious and the rampant. Not so. The songs by Hunt, Richard Hawley (guitar), Simon Stafford (bass, piano) and Dee Boyle (drums) all have a basic structure: simple sounds, powerful silences, and intense rythms, along with the clever manipulation of all three. At first listen, the band sounds much like your average overnight success take-a-British-accent-and-play-some-guitar-music Britpop band. In some respects, it's true...they are a band and they are British. Yes, their similarity to Radiohead have probably gained them some clone fans, but what to do? If you're looking for something totally and utterly different, then don't bother even taking a peek at the cover of this album. But if you want something that takes a pinch of Blur, a touch of Oasis, some Beatles, a few globs of Pink Floyd, chunks of the Cure, mixes in some head-jerking and mad dancing and coats it with that thing you just can't put your finger on (but are willing to listen to until you do) then this is a good listen. Try it, you'll like it...tastes like chicken -- but sounds like a pig.

--Jumana