Chapel Club have Deerhunter, Liars, Sonic Youth and LCD Soundsystem as their top friends on Myspace - that has to be a good sign. Tipped for big things in 2010, the band makes confident guitar music with an unusual edge and a certain panache that makes them stand out from anything else I’ve heard recently. Take the track ‘Surfacing’ which scooped Record of The Week on Nick Grimshaw’s show back in November. The tune is wonderfully deceptive, starting out as it does with insistent guitar and big bollocks drums, only to break into a chorus of the words from ‘Dream a Little Dream of Me’ sung Sinatra-esque but accompanied by some wonderfully inappropriate echoey guitars and the requisite synth additions that any band needs to be recognized nowadays. ‘O Maybe I’ (due out 22 Feb) is once again guitar heavy but this time invites an unavoidable comparison to The Smiths, particularly with the Morrissey-like vocals. Which is not a bad thing.
Apparently the band became one in the shadow of St Luke’s Church in Old Street, hence the name, and have since begun to claw their way out of the cesspool of wannabe scenesters and on to their own rock of authentic credibility. They cite a massive range of lyrical influences including Ted Hughes, Frank O’Hara and Ernest Hemingway, a broad spectrum of musical influences including the likes of Deerhunter, New Order, and Chet Baker and a wide sheet of inspirations taken from everything and anything, including vintage stop-motion film shorts, guitar lines and drum samples (among many other things..). This mash up of influences goes some way to explaining the uniqueness of the band’s style as well as the fact that they just about get their head and shoulders above the generic NME-beloved guitar band tag that has been attached to so many flashes in the pan in recent years. I hope for good things for Chapel Club, I think they deserve it.
www.myspace.com/chapelclub
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