Film School - Dear Me

It's taken California's Film School since the late 90s to transform their surreptitious talent for writing gloomy rock tunes into something tangible and genuinely interesting. With new single, Dear Me, it seems the band is finally willing to take this much delayed step. A sweet moment of dark pop sensibility, it sits somewhere between Adore era Smashing Pumpkins and A Perfect Circle's Mers de Noms opus. With a hint of the Jesus and Mary Chain and even a relaxed Foo Fighters ambiance thrown about, this is a mature single, built subtly from keyboard atmospheres and unadorned rhythms. [Neil Ferguson]