Pilot Episode

And while we're at it, what's with people reading books as they walk along? I don't mean an A-Z or a Let's Go To Stuttgart guide, I mean a novel. They must be able to read all of 8 words before they have to look where they're going. I see them, trundling round Headington lapping up War & Peace. Some of them go at quite a lick,too. Madness.

WE AERONAUTS/ ALPHABET BACKWARDS/ MESSAGE TO BEARS, 3 Blind Mice, Wheatsheaf, 29/1/10

Outstanding ensemble WLTM song for meaningful relationship.

Message To Bears are phenomenal musicians. Every bucolically plucked guitar, subtly controlled rhythm and delicious violin lick is impeccably phrased and beautifully balanced. On its own this is enough to make the set a joy, but how much better it would be if they had just one memorable composition. Every piece chugs and arpeggiates its way along like a refined folky Mogwai – Implosions In The Sky, if you will – and we yearn for a soaring line from the violin to lift proceedings. Nick one from Sibelius or an Irish air or something, we don’t care, just give us a reason for this astonishing band to perform. One for late night headphone listening rather than a swamped Wheatsheaf, perhaps.

Band seeks audience for inconsequential frolics. VVVVGSOH essential!!!

As they’re a perky cross between Blur and Erasure, with two children’s TV presenters on vocals and a flurry of farty synth lines somewhere between Sky and Air, playing songs about low end High Street retail and duff sex, we’ll concede that Alphabet Backwards can verge on the infuriatingly wacky. But, by God, give us sugary, day-glo, shimmering pop songs like these and we’ll forgive any peccadilloes. As catchy as Ricky Ponting covered in velcro and spraying swine flu serum, these are possibly the most liberating, uninhibited, spring-loaded pop songs in Oxford’s history, and if you haven’t heard them yet get ready to be swept up in the euphoria or sent back to your miserable little life even more enraged than before.

Band looking for…err…not sure.

We Aeronauts suffer partly from being uncertain what they are. Epic pop? Folk shanty singalong? Belle & Sebastian delicacy? Stornoway eloquence? Here’s an idea: how about starting by becoming a band who sound like they’re all playing in the same room, who have discernable tunes, and whose concept of “arrangement” doesn’t approximate “seven people play simultaneously until we end up with an indistinguishable sonic hummus”? Perhaps it was the atrociously muddied mix, making them sound like they were playing in a wellington on Botley Road, or perhaps it was an off night, but in a blind test we’d never believe this was the band we found quite pleasant at Punt. If you believe this is one of Oxford’s best bands, then you’ll believe the people in lonely hearts ads really are slim, attractive, charming and into Chekhov.