Close Lobsters. Never Seen Before.

Spangled and scintillating like light on rippling water or silver sequins on a black dress. Fast sounds, big hooks. Fire Station Towers and Wide Waterways (an Only Ones cover) were both excellent. You will feel better after listening to this.

Never Seen Before

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Close Lobsters. Nature Thing.

Nature Thing is, like all the Close Lobsters' best songs, barbed and jangly. This single also includes a cover of Neil Young's Hey Hey, My My (Into the Black), Leonard Cohen's Paper Thin Hotel, and a live version of one of their early songs.

Nature Thing

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Close Lobsters. What Is There to Smile About.

Short and tight without a single wasted moment. The Close Lobsters hailed from Paisley, which seems fitting considering their hazy neo-psych/indie/jangle pop sound. Horribly underrated and unjustly forgotten, especially since of all the C-86 bands, the Lobsters exemplified the absolute best of the post-Smiths period of snarky, trebly, British pop. Everything they did still sounds fresh, from their sharp hooks to singer Andrew Burnett's pointed, adenoidal vocal style. I keep hoping they'll get back together.

Smile

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Close Lobsters. Headache Rhetoric.

Whilst flipping through my library's copy of Spin magazine on my lunchbreak today, I was pleased to see one of my favorite "lost" bands highlighted in their 100 Greatest Bands You've (Probably) Never Heard Of.

"After appearing on the legendary C86 post-punk compilation, this Glaswegian quartet released two exquisite albums, offering pleasurably chiming, subtly psychedelic guitar lines that virtually defined late '80s indie pop."

I think they deserve an entire article, and a retrospective box set would be nice, but you take what you can get. They only put out two albums and an EP, but each one is utterly wonderful. Probably some of the best music to come out of that scene.

I was going to say that Headache Rhetoric is a fair bit less sunny than their first album, but Foxheads Stalk This Land isn't so much sunny as sharply lit. Headache is more musically aggressive than their first album, but still underpinned by solid pop structures and wonderfully chiming guitars.

If you enjoyed the 14 Iced Bears, you'll probably dig this, too.

Headache

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