Sunday 29/10/06 From The Wreckage, Shakes, Pop Noir, goFASTER>> @ In The City, Manchester

Last night, your ITC correspondent spent an evening in the Dry Bar (which was far from dry, by the way), taking in the best and worst of an eclectic Glasswerk bill. Tonight, we’ll be casting the net a little wider, but it makes geographical and musical sense (it’s the nearest to where yours truly lives, and it was a pretty good average last night)  to pop back in for at least a couple more (bands, that is).   We arrive to hear the fresh-faced Blondelle, who are two E.Ps and even fewer birthdays into their career. These kids are brimming with youthful energy and spiky post-Arctics under-age indie cool. The Borrell fixation grates, but that’s probably just because we hate Razorlight. Remember the name, as someone once said about a young footballer who made it rather big.   Less likely to make it onto teenage girls walls, but more likely to be supporting the next decent band to play in your town, are goFASTER. Clipped guitars and mini-synths bounce around the room over taut new wave rhythms, building to euphoric instrumental climaxes, and it’s v.v.loud. Song titles like ‘She Said She Was In Hollyoaks; Turns Out She Works in Cheshire Oaks’ will always raise a smile around these parts, too.   The walk up to the other end of town goes a hell of a lot quicker with the sound of goFASTER buzzing around our heads, and so it seems like no time at all before we’re heading haphazardly into One Central.   Let’s be honest: bars like this are no good for gigs. They’re dark, yes, but by no means dingy enough. And when we’re presented incongruously with a pair of eighteen-year-old Russell Brand-a-likes playing what sounds like a DFA-produced Electronic, the stench of ‘showcase’ is unshakeable. But let that not cloud our judgements of Pop Noir, whose loop-driven, celestial synth-pop is everything to all listeners.   From there we nip next door to the Life Café to catch some of the Australian bands showcase. With recent successes such as The Howling Bells, Wolfmother and The Morning After Girls, the Aussies are on a roll at the moment. Alas, The Sound Movement don’t do nearly enough to convince us that they’re next in the line, so we dive downstairs to the late room, where Making Eyes At Elvis are midway through their set.   The trio combine Panic At The Disco emo flamboyance with The Dresden Dolls’ piano/drums dynamic, but they don’t offer enough tonight to set them apart from their obvious influences. Norwich’s The Lost Levels promise more – an 8-bit take on Yes gets the juices flowing for a blast of Mario madness – but a lack of charisma makes it more catatonic than Sonic.