Press-based "scenes" are notorious affairs. While they can bestow virtually instant attention and critical acclaim on certain bands, the highway is also littered with the detritus of those groups whose supposedly guarenteed quarter hour of fame sputtered out prior to the five minute mark.
THE NEEDLES are currently in that (un)enviable position of being hotly-tipped by the NME by dint of their association with the Glasgow scene that's already brought us Franz Ferdinand and Dogs Die In Hot Cars.
So, are The Needles guilty by association then? Probably, in the sense that the Aberdeen-born, Glasgow-based quartet play a cranked-up, tuneful cocktail of sub three-minute, old skool new wave laced with a liberal Mickey Finn of power pop. Crucially, though, they clearly don't give a rat's ass for anything other than delivering their own rawk thrills aplenty, and thus the frenetic "Under The Sky" EP hits home like a demolition team let loose in a district full of condemned tenements.
"Under The City" itself, is amyl nitrate cut'n'thrust at its' best, with urgency aplenty and a chorus so catchy you could hang coats off it, but really everything here's attractive, not least the classy "Back Where I Belong" - which cocks snooks at both The Libertines' energy and Elvis Costello's early, vitriol-tinged vocal delivery - and the full-on crunch of "Teenage Bomb", which is both ridiculously cartoony and totally irresistible.
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Bizarrely, this brevity-fuelled battering ram is shoved at us by Dangerous Records, previously home of Muse's ambitious widdleathons, but let's celebrate rather than ponder their involvement as they obviously recognise supercharged and infectious rock'n'roll when they hear it. You will, too, as The Needles are - at least for now - a sizeable shot in the heart for rock's tired torso.
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