Friday 02/06/06 The New Shapes @ The Barfly, Liverpool

Another four piece take to another stage with heavy shoulders knowing theirs is a hard burden to carry.  It’s the ‘how many loud people in pubs have told you to check out their My Space page’ weight made heavier in recent times by those pesky monkeys.  The New Shapes have the sound alike quality of the Rakes but cleaner and lead singer Mark Roberts has the potential to be charismatic, it was just a shame that the barfly wasn’t responding this time.  So witty anecdotes about the Brian Jones Town Massacre fighting each other (no joke) fell on deaf ears as did the catchy tunes it would seem; the depleted crowd remained lacklustre throughout. 

But this didn’t rain on the New Shapes parade, with single ‘Waiting for A God’ full to the brim with cheeky indie dancehall potential.  All members had boundless enthusiasm for their songs, executing them with intense vigour as if the twenty people staring up at them could make or break their career. Mark especially sings with a passion that exposes a raw pride for his penned lyrics slightly hurt by the sparse audience.

When selling bands, record labels are like estate agents and tonight’s gig promised to be something we’ve heard before but not as we know it.  Not only that but apparently The New Shapes know the difference between the right and wrong type of guitar music.  Well whether they choose to listen to Springstein or not has little bearing on tonight’s set, which unsurprisingly – cos we all know how reliable estate agents are - sounds like everything we’ve heard before!

This is not necessarily a bad thing: four men playing indie guitar music is a tried and tested formula, who can blame them?  And the songs are there – 'Song About a Girl' is smashing and makes toes tap and New Queen kicks like a small, frustrated mule (a good thing). The New Shapes have made strides into the air play land mine by having session time on XFM. But the music industry she’s a fickle beast and only time will tell if the darlings of the indie world choose to take The New Shapes to their heaving bosom.