Tuesday, January 22, 2008

It's My Club and I'll Play What I Want To


Some people like to think of Swansea as Dylan Thomas's town but for me it will always belong to Helen Love.

New album It's My Club and I'll Play What I Want To has all the correct components: obsessive references to The Ramones; numerous mentions of summer; and bubblegum; and transistor radios.

Helen Love were Wales' first postmodern band and this is their fourth album. And here the girls continue to construct their perfect punk-pop-disco universe. Just listing some of the song titles will give you a flavour of their oeuvre: Debbie Loves Joey; You Better Learn Karate; The 1910 Fruitgum Company; Honolulu Superstar; Queen of the Disco Beat; A New Squad Attacking Formation; Saturday....Nite!!!! and so on.

With this incessant rain now reaching biblical proportions you could do a lot worse than allow a chink of musical sunshine into your lives courtesy of Swansea's finest band, like, ever.

It's My Club and I'll Play What I Want To by the always excellent Helen Love is out soon on Elefant Records. The good news is that it is also available on pink vinyl (600 copies). Get in there!