Under the Influence

Working For A Nuclear Free City - Over
Working For A Nuclear Free City - Troubled Son

Working For A Nuclear Free City are a band under the influence of the city in which they dwell. Thank the lord that city is Manchester and not Milton Keynes, as their debut album is one of immense promise, revealing a former studio based duo finding their feet from the expansion of the band to a fully operational four-piece. They've definitely been drinking the same water as the Stone Roses and early New Order, as atmospheric instrumental songs rub shoulders with psychedelic vocal tracks that resemble the Chemical Brothers collaborating with Ian Brown. I even scribbled down '808 State remixing Slowdive' when I was making notes on the album, though listening back, I'm not sure to which track I was referring.

I don’t think posting a couple of tracks is really going to enable you to get a solid grasp of what you’d be getting were you to purchase the album, such is the variety of styles on offer here. Every time you think you’ve got them pinned down, they squirm from your grasp and take off in another direction, like a sack full of cats let loose in a windy field. Take ‘Over’, which opens with wheezing harmonica and one of those classic J. Spaceman vocal coda’s, before busting out into a raucous instrumental passage that sounds like something from Ride’s ‘Going Blank Again’. Then there’s ‘Troubled Man’, which lives up to their press companies’ “techno played on guitars” tag, sounding like ‘Begging You’-era Roses, or Kasabian without any of the unbearable bullshit. The best thing you can do is buy the album when it’s released by Melodic on September 18th and make your own mind up.

Working For A Nuclear Free City at My Space
Label website for the always excellent Melodic
The not very up-to-date band website
Pre-order the album from Norman Records

Joe.