Echoes and dust

I love albums like this, the ones that arrive unheralded and unknown but turn out to be gobsmacking. Yet another product of Leeds’ overactive music scene, Itch are eminently well named, making what is ostensibly raucous indie music but with something of an unsettling edge, just slightly twitchy, off kilter and well, Itchy. Not the most prolific of folk though these guys, ‘Illusions Of Grandeur From A One Trick Pony’ is their second album, coming something like ten years after their debut!

Opener ‘Big.Clever’ starts out conventionally enough, but soon dropped beats and, discordant notes just set the listener on edge, the track never settles in to doing quite what you’d expect it to, and it’s all the better for it and this sets the tone for the next forty five minutes or so.

There is obvious melodic capability here, ‘The Bombshell’ has some lovely little riffs and guitar counter points, but there is also a wilful playfulness that won’t settle for letting things stay too ordinary. Just when you think a song is playing itself out peacefully these guys give it a kick in another direction.

Highlight for me, and contender for song title of the year, is ‘This Place Is Full Of Dinosaurs, So I Waited For The Next Big Bang And Two Came Along At Once’, which I’m sure they don’t play at gigs for fear of running out of time before they’ve finished introducing it. This song has more ideas packed in to its six minutes than many bands manage in a whole career.

There’s something of the Wedding Present in here, and quite a lot of Mathy cleverness, but also an endearing rawnesss, in the music and the vocal delivery.

All in all, an excellent album that not only grabs the listener’s attention but holds on tight and never lets it wander. Let’s just hope they don’t leave it another ten years to make number three.

Top Tracks: 'Dinosaurs...', 'Fine Tooth Comb'.

Released November 17 on Tip Toe