Talk about mental stage invasions and bands inspiring levels of frenzied devotion these days and it's usually bands like The Libertines, The Others and - latterly - The Arctic Monkeys who spring to mind. A month's a long time in pop, after all.
Indeed it's hard to imagine that it's a whole decade back that similar scenes of hysteria greeted virtually every gig by a bunch of youthful whippersnappers called Symposium. At the time, none of the quintet could envisage life past 21 and songwriting maestro/ bassist Wojtek was a relative veteran at a long-in-the-tooth 17. At a time when Blur vs. Oasis ruled, Symposium were literally doing it for the kids, playing matinees and delighting the NME, who ran stories like the one about the 13-year old fan who half-inched a microphone stand at the 'Posium's Notre Dame Hall show and attempted to smuggle it out of the venue. The soft get, as Jim Royle would no doubt have noted: should've nicked summat portable instead!
In case you're wondering where this dubious history lesson is leading, then let me put you out of your misery. Symposium featured one Ross Cummins, a livewire, jumping bean of a frontman who was liable to sing hanging from beams, leaping into the first few rows or performing somersaults over the drum riser rather than (pah!) simply deliver the songs from the stage. He's that decade older now, but seemingly in no danger of running out of youthful adrenaline if his new combo PAPER CUTS are anything to go by.
Ver Cuts have already been ripping it up (literally) supporting Symposium's other spin-off group - the rated Hell Is For Heroes - around Europe, but they've stood still long enough to record their debut limited edition single for iLikETRAiNS label Kids Records and are here to present us with the results.
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And, initially, it's not quite what you'd expect, as the intro brings us new wave-y, Cars/ Devo-style synths and rubber-thumbed basslines from Arec Koundarjian. Fret not, though, because the guitars begin to paw the ground when Ross's vocals enter the picture. He sings well, too, with plenty of charisma, and sets up a chorus that will soon lodge immoveably in your synapses. It touches on niggly pop, quirky funk and balls-out punk and ends with some weirdo arcade-style electronic squiggles reminisecent of Vic Godard's great "Ambition." Not a bad yardstick, by anyone's standards.
Flipside "Stand Up Be Counted" is a little more traditional in punk-pop terms, though it features the sort of riffs The Killers have employed so successfully of late and more of those quirky keyboards loitering with intent in the wings. There's a likeable, junior Lydon sneer in Ross's voice and the band ride out the whole caboodle with both skill and enthusiasm to spare.
It's still early days, of course, but these two energetic and nicely off-kilter anthems suggest the onset of their mid-20s has hardly blunted Ross Cummins' and co's vitality. Paper Cuts may well draw blood on a much wider scale.
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