The Twang

Wide Awake

First the Kaisers, then The Automatic and now The Twang. On current form, you’d put a fiver on ‘super-indie’ B-Unique succeeding even if they announced plans to fly Pennie to Mars fuelled by one of Preston’s leftover cappuccinos.

At first glance these gnarly Midlands upstarts look unlikely superstars. Their wardrobes are hopelessly bereft of the indie nation’s current clobber du jour (mock gothic; Day-Glo rave). Their ever-growing fanclub, meanwhile, led by Noel Gallagher and Tom Meighan, suggests a certain laddishness about their disciples. And yet, ‘Wide Awake’ is still the mightiest, most gloriously life-affirming track you’ll hear this month. A filthy, cocksure confessional in the best tradition of Shaun Ryder, it finds Phil Etheridge taking drugs, getting jiggy with someone he shouldn’t have and waking up in the morning feeling like death. It’s a Mike Skinner concept album packed into three epic minutes. “What was I doing with that MILF?”, he booms, as swaggering U2-like guitars shimmer by, all blessed with an unmistakable skunk-rock scuzziness.

If ‘Wide Awake’’s similarity to Flowered Up’s ‘It’s On’ (ask your dribbling, saucer-eyed, flower-headed weirdo of an uncle)

will delight wheelchair-bound baggy veterans, The Twang are also bringing more of the pilled-up, anything-goes spirit of rave to the party than all the opposition put together. Sorted!

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