Clad in fetching Dennis The Menace red and black, On The Bone's eclectic first compilation is a slingshot in the eye of the Leeds primer hegemony currently presided over by Dance To The Radio. A pretty good shot it is too. Samsa make an early splash with 'The Fight', all sweeping, minimal gestures like prime-era U2 at their most introspective - ravishing stuff. Mother Vulpine's 'We'll Be Detectives For The Day' doles out riffs with the joyous abandon of a Texan judge signing death warrants and is a fraught affair indeed. Elsewhere on the record, Scaramanga Six's 'I Wear My Heart On My Sleeve' is air-punchingly ace, Mickey Charbagz sounds unpleasantly adolescent and Benjamin Wetherill's simply away with the fairies. Wild Beasts punch slightly below their weight with hep-cat shuffle 'Boom', and the vocal agitations of Smokers Die Younger's 'Consumer Advice' fail to disguise the lack of a tune, but on the whole this is a smartly-assembled package no card-carrying scenester should be without.

Alex Denney

back