Arcade Fire - Rebellion (lies)/Rebellion (Lies) Live (Rough Trade)
Another month and another single by the Arcade Fire is released and makes our single of the month. Culled from the Funeral album and issued on nice white vinyl, Rebellion is another sublime slice of left-field pop that no other band have been able to touch for quirk and originality all year. Use of the track Wake Up on a BBC trailer should further raise the profile following their acclaimed festival gigs (we saw ‘em first in May you will recall) - see May 05

Yeti - Keep Pushin’ On (Moshi Moshi)
Second single from the band containing an ex-Libertine that made the wonderful debut 45 Never Lose Your Sense of Wonder earlier this year. This sounds like they’ve decided to join the current bunch of revivalist with a part The Who/part ska bouncy summer guitar tune that the Ordinary Boys would die for. Ok but nowhere near as good as their debut suggested. The B Side In Like With You is a slower number more akin to The Las and far better in my opinion....

The Broken Family Band - Happy Days Are Here Again (Track & Field)
Lead track on the bands rather excellent album Welcome Home Loser, this is a corker of a single from the band who have been around for years making quirky British alt-country and were big favourites of dear old Peelie. They sing “Happy days are here again, whoo hoo” and they’re not wrong...

Mystery Jets - You Can’t Fool me Dennis (679)
This sounds like Ray Davies fronting a early XTC, and is very similar to sort of British guitar pop being made by Dogs Die in Hot Cars. Lyrics like ”When the cat befriended the mouse, there wasn’t a dry eye in the house” are hardly a Kinks classic. The jury is out on this lot but I may be persuaded yet. Dennis?, Who is the f*ck is Dennis?

The Victorian English Gentleman’s Club - Tales of Hermit Mark (Fantastic Plastic)
Are they local? Neither Victorian or English, but hailing from Cardiff. The bass and drums beginning sounds like a Bauhaus record and then the guitar comes in leaning towards the The Pixies. I prefer the B-Side My Son Spells Backwards featuring some good shrieking vocals and a nice female backing. All very interesting and a serious contender for record of the month. Nice handmade packaging and mottled white vinyl should have indie collectors salivating. Buy one before you have to pay for it with gold bars on Ebay. Don’t think they’ve got much chance of getting the long name on their drum kit bass drum skin mind!

Broadcast - Americas Boy (Warp)
First record in ages from Brum’s trippy electro beat merchants who started out on Stereolab’s Duophonic label years ago before putting out some good albums on Warp. They’ve stripped down to a duo and seem to bough even cheaper keyboards than they had last time. Sounding more like a female fronted early Soft Cell or the Cocteau Twins on acid its weird stuff but interesting and strangely compelling at the same time.