New Rhodes
333 Mother Bar, London
11/11/2009
 
Pedestrian indie bands are ten a penny, whatever that means, but truly exceptional indie bands are a rare thing indeed. For every under-achieving but brilliant outfit – Clearlake, Pete & The Pirates, or New Rhodes - there are fifty like The Twang, The Hoosiers, The View, The Automatic, The Wombats…we could go on.

While so many of their peers are desperately contrived, style-over-content major label brainstorming by-products, force-fed to the masses via XFM, New Rhodes have spent their time honing their art to the point that they’re as shit-hot as anyone around. Frontman James Williams seems rightly convinced of his band’s brilliance, and passionately delivers a rapid-fire set that showcases the immaculate, intelligent pop songs that are their staple, and are almost without compare in the present landscape.

The venue, while way short of the capacity they should be playing to in a right and just world, suits them perfectly; effectively a first-floor function room that could accommodate 100 at best, they’re able to command the audience with a super-tight performance through a surprisingly sharp PA system. They know what their strengths are, clearly, and they play to them – predominantly upbeat, with hooky verses and irresistible choruses, to the point that every track could be a single. It’s almost impossible to cherry-pick, but from tonight’s selection alone – primarily taken from recent longplayer ‘Everybody Loves A Scene’ – tunes such as ’254′, ‘The Joys Of Finding And Losing That Girl’ and ‘Let’s Talk’ are simply wondrous, with those gathered as excitable by the end as the band seem to be throughout.

Few are more deserving of the break that they clearly need, and hopefully New Rhodes will remain committed until it comes their way – as it surely will with performances and material of this standard.
 
Andy Slocombe