YOUNG KNIVES - Voices Of Animals & Men Review

Voices Of Animals And Men has a confidence that is both winning and frustrating. The Young Knives have been together long enough to have a firm grasp of some sounds of their own, and their swirl of pop hooks and quirks is always tightly-knit, but this means that as a debut album, this is oddly one that finds a band already within their ‘comfort zone’. Buried in almost every song is a strand of melodic magic that is relied upon slightly too much....full text A first listen suggests the Young Knives are merely the latest in the conveyor belt of Futureheadsalikes filling the dancefloors of the nation's indie clubs. The spiky guitars and juddering rhythms are all in place, and, like the Futureheads, they have turned to Gang of Four's Andy Gill to produce their first full-length album. But there's a sophistication here that the Futureheads never managed....full text A few years back, whilst the British music scene enthusiastically observed spandex-clad cock-rock and the adventures of a smacked-up cockney chancer, three men voted Least Likely To Rock in school moved from their Leicestershire roots to Oxford, donned lab coats as startlingly white as a Brandon Flowers suit and set to work in their secret underground lair. Here they distilled and tested their bubbling potions, breaking only to watch QI, until they devised the optimum formula for indie-rock in the 21st Century and committed it to record. They have named this record Voices of Animals and Men, and for twenty-plus minutes it is a standout debut....full text