As far as great musical cities go Leeds seems to be one which is consistently looked over, but that may be because the days of producing post-punk greats such as Gang of Four and The Wedding present are long gone. These days, most Leeds bands stall soon after a promising new release – that, or they’re too busy predicting social unrest (See Kaiser Chiefs). China Rats e are the latest young upstarts to hail from the city, and they’ve started with a bang. ‘To Be Like I’ is the eponymous title track from China Rats’ self-produced EP. It bleeds jangly guitars and a pounding drumbeat, yet the vocal melody feels like I’ve heard it all before; Lee Mavers meets Daniel Blumberg of Yuck. In fact, I’d say China Rats share some of the same musical DNA of Yuck, except whereas the latter pay homage to 90s grunge and 50s pop with a defined purpose (and unrefined hair-cuts), China Rats are still finding their feet amongst the vast musical terrain (albeit, with refined haircuts).
Recently they offered faithful listeners a free download of their latest track N.O.M.O.N.E.Y. – another track dripping with overtones of what makes these lads tick – indie, pop, punk. We offer you their earlier release and hope that China Rats live up to their previous hype and charter some unknown territory sooner rather than later.
Lovely. I meant to write about China Rats a few weeks back, but never got around to it.
Leeds seems to be producing a lot a interesting new bands I’m liking at the moment, like them, This Many Boyfriends and Fossil Collective.
Nice one Chris. Fossil Collective are gooduns. It seems to be a little melting pot lately. The Brundenell Social usually has the best acts on in Leeds, its always worth checking their listings for good local bands.
Cool, I’ll keep that in mind. I’ll need to take a trip over to Leeds at some point to check out local music there. I had considered going there when I’m in Newcastle next month, then I realized that Newcastle and Leeds are about 100 miles away. That’s the problem with living in Belfast – absolutely no knowledge of English geography.
Yeah, there is quite a distance between the two but I’m sure Transpennine lay on a train that only takes an hour – hour & a half max.