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Debuts
- 19/10/07
It's an age-old debate, one that's rumbled on almost as long as music has been made and bands have tried to put on a show for audiences: how much of an act's appeal is natural and instant? Can stagecraft really be taught? Indeed, should it be?
Because, at the end of the set when the amps have been switched off, we're only left with the tunes ringing in our ears - and if they're good enough, nothing else should really matter. Already The Debuts have those in abundance and, over the course of thirty short minutes in Leeds Cockpit, they mark themselves out as ones for the future - if not for now.
The quintet hail from Halifax, but their sound and presentation is firmly rooted across the Atlantic. The detached cool of The Strokes and frontgirl Zandra Kleivens' androgynous, Patti Smith-esque vocal style - as influences go, there are certainly worse - might have been done before (not least by The Strokes and Patti Smith themselves!) but The Debuts twin that image with quintessentially British melodies.
Though their fizzing, uplifting guitar-pop owes a musical, as well stylistic, debt to The Strokes, a modern day British parallel would be Manchester's The Answering Machine - another band who combine chiming, melodic instrumentation with downbeat lyrics.
The Debuts' 'Go Set Go', for instance, sees Kleivens lamenting her dissatisfaction with a relationship ("I know you better than you'll ever know me") against a backdrop of duelling Bunnymen guitars, and on '43' she again seems to be lamenting a headstrong friend/lover ("You never think about anything twice").
'Circles And Squares' is the pick of tonight's bunch, and has the potential to push them towards the airwaves if they choose to release it as a single - which surely they must. Coming on a bit like New Order covering The Maccabees, Kleivens is in a more melancholic frame of mind ("come see me I'll still you" she implores) but the guitars soar towards the stars.
And if they can write a few more tunes of that calibre, that's precisely what The Debuts themselves will eventually become too.
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Only say it if it's worth saying. We'll have to to remove anything that doesn't fit the bill.
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