Late of the Pier - Fantasy Black Channel

Ok, so the sound of young 'indie/electro' bands was an infuriating regularity throughout 2008. Putting thoughts of songs about Nike trainers to irregular bleeps aside, this Nottingham 4-piece hit the nail on the head with a surprisingly bearable fusion of synth-pop, spandex rock and catchy electro beats. Fantasy Black Channel was an extremely impressive album for a group that do obviously have balls. 'Hot Tent Blues' appears a bit 'epic' at the beginning, arguably more of a song than an intro, it combines some high and distorted guitar sounds with crashing cymbals before abruptly switching tempo into a catchy, almost jazz like riff. It ends so suddenly they really do have us in their (what I would imagine to be tight and glitter filled) pocket straight after one minute and 18 seconds.

What really shows is how they they've done well merging some definitely distinct sounds together in the form of 'Focker'. Track nine shows us some pretty nifty synth work accompanying some fast-paced and well thought out lyrics by front-man Samuel Dust before breaking down to a very mellow, dare I say, 'Mars Volta-esque' mid section. It ends with an up-tempo, extremely catchy electro back-end that will guarantee to get your head nodding (trust me, I've tried not to). For me, LOTP's down-fall was the whole 'style' they seemed to create. How much electro-glam would we be able to take, was the question LOTP fans were fighting back, and with no word of a follow-up yet, it looks like not much more. But, for the time it came out, it was one of the best we had all year.