The Longcut - A Quiet Life
[Deltasonic]

This second EP, follow-up to last year’s Transition, is three tracks that have seen the band called “The saviours of dance music” (whatever ‘dance’ music is supposed to be). “Like there’s only one kind of music you’re allowed to make with certain instruments” said the band about their use of drum machines and synths. But this flippant laudit takes second place to the comparisons that are made between them and the heroes of their adopted home town of Manchester, Joy Division.

It’s less that they sound like Joy Division and more that they listen to the same Krautrock stuff that Joy Division did. Rhythm-heavy tunes built from the foundations of the drums and bass with skewed melodies layered over them, the singer straining to make his screech heard over guitars that sound like breaking glass.

The title track is a weird pop song, built around the kind of format used by Stereolab. There’s a pounding intro that builds you up through a verse and then, when any other band may slip comfortably into a chart-topping chorus, an instrumental section throws it off to the left-of-the-centre like a car breaking through a crash barrier and careering across the opposing traffic.

There’s nothing simple about the Longcut – from the often mentioned fact that their drummer spends their gigs jumping out from behind his kit to do his duties on lead vocals to their blatant disregard for any kind of simple, by-numbers songwriting. As you listen to them, it isn’t the melodies that you’re concentrating on – it’s the times when the rhythms drop-out then kick-in again. So in that sense they have their place in ‘dance’ music (and A Quiet Life sounds great next to Mylo’s Drop The Pressure) but to say that they are here to rescue something ailing doesn’t do enough to describe the new sound that they bring.