Music blog

Earlier this week the line of duty saw me head to Leeds, home of Leeds United, massive great hills and students with very fashionable haircuts. It is also the home of one of this year's most talked about and exciting new bands, Wild Beasts who we were filming for a special Ones To Watch piece in one of our Weekly Vodcasts which you will be able to catch next month.

The band were rehearsing for the new album in, appropriately enough for a group called Wild Beasts, a barn on the outskirts of the city and we were fortunate enough to film them rehearsing. Needless to say it was awesome, but it wasn't simply the band that caught our attention.

At the back of a barn, looking lonely but surprisingly well kept was a poster advertising an album called 'Estate Style Entertainment' by a band called Bedlam Ago Go. A quote commenting from Mary Ann Hobbs gave her opinion on the album:

"Quite possibly the most exciting new group I have heard in 5 years… their debut LP is going to reshape the face of British music and will become recognised as the most intoxicating, influential and inconceivably brilliant debut album of the year."

Now has anyone ever heard of them?! After some research it turns out that the album came out in July 1998, the same year that some genuinely exciting and influential albums came out including Air's 'Moon Safari', Beck's 'Mutations' and Bright Eye's 'Letting Off The Happiness'. What I want to know is this - how can someone as so well respected and supposedly expert as Mary Ann Hobbs get it so very wrong?! Listen to this, it's awful and thankfully it didn't reshape the face of British music.

Bedlam Ago Go - 'Season No'

In stark contrast, my Leeds jaunt also gave me the opportunity to talk to two of the city's many music lovers who both independently recommended a band called Dinosaur Pile-up . Now I'm not going to "do a Hobbs" and proclaim that their debut LP will reshape the face of British music, solve the Aids crisis in South Africa and put a stop to global warming but I will say this - they written a couple of cracking tunes and they could well be one of 2009's best breakthrough acts.

Check them out on their myspace: myspace.com/dinosaurpileup