Super Custom Limited
"Good God, this band can actually play their instruments!"
This will likely be your first impression if you play this CD expecting to hear another clone of the Fratellis or the Arctic Monkeys.
You know the types: those quasi-Britpop groups with an indie streak, strumming the same five chords to a generic drumbeat and singing in their local accent about nothing in particular.
The kind of band you say are "beneath you" when around friends, but secretly sing along to when they come on the radio. Wouldn't it be great, you sometimes wonder, if there were a band like the Kaiser Chiefs... but with enough musical talent that I'd actually wear their tee-shirt in public?
Enter Big Strides. A London three piece who combine lo-fi indie with - as they put it - 'badass funk blues jazz rock'. In short, they're accessible enough to be part of the current music scene, but familiar enough with other, more challenging genres to kick the ass of aforementioned generic indie types when it comes to knowing how to handle an instrument.
Bands spanning several genres can be hard to classify and can have trouble winning over die-hard fans of one particular genre, and for this reason I suspect a few of the more intense fans of the Arctic Monkeys et al. may have difficulty appreciating a band like this.
But for the more eclectic or impartial listener you'll probably find something you like. It's refreshing to find a band who can play more than just a guitar, and the band's diverse and dynamic performance make this an album you'll need to hear several times before your ears digest every sound that's been crammed in there.
The first single is Hen Night Limousine, the video to which is above and essential viewing for anyone from Cardiff. (And kudos to the boys for thanking "The good people of Cardiff" in their album sleeve.)
This track could go down well in the right club - especially if they played the video - but on the whole this album isn't something to make you jump up and dance your socks off.
If you liked the single but are hoping for a lot of faster and more energetic tracks on the album, you may be disappointed.
Tracks like The Pretty One feature an upbeat rhythm and are the closest they come to the Arctic Monkey-esque spectrum, while Soul Swap slows right down to elegantly capture the band's ability to float seamlessly between genres: I was reminded less of indie or jazz and more of The Beautiful South and Ocean Colour Scene.
The album is more jazz rock than Britpop, and some of the tracks wouldn't be out of place as background lounge music. But good background music: the kind that gets stuck in your head for days, and you don't feel ashamed when you start to whistle it.
Super Custom Limited (out now) is the Big Strides' third studio album. They're so huge in Japan they have their own Paul Smith clothing range.
More tracks can be heard at www.bigstrides.net.