The Victorian English Gentlemens Club – Love On An Oil Rig

Wilfully weird, The Victorian English Gentlemens Club are a band that will remain half-hidden in the darker extremities of British indie. No T4 spots, Radio One playlists or NME tours for this band, oh no. But while the populace at large will carry on unaware of the Cardiff four-piece, more discerning folks can enjoy their unhinged art-punk clatter with their smug sense of obscurity intact. Three years on from their razor-edged eponymous debut, Love On An Oil Rig broadens their sound without neutralising their appeal. An extra layer of melody fleshes out their previously stark sound on tracks like Watching the Burglars, while a rash of guitar squalls and Adam Taylor doing his best PiL-era John Lydon embellishes The Venereal Game. It’s only on Driver’s Companion, an observational tale of the sexual frustration of the HGV driver, that they take their wacky art school mentality too far. [Nick Mitchell]