Friday 30/05/03 Aidan Smith, The Mountaineers @ Barfly, Liverpool

For all those who believe in the commonly held notion that Twisted Nerve Recordings is just an excuse for middle class boys to grow beards, wear cardigans and produce charmingly ramshackle accoustic nonsense, the sight of Aiden Smith mumbling his way through a set of off kilter piano led ditties can only fuel such prejudice. However as with his illustrious label mate Badly Drawn Boy there's an undoubted talent lurking behind the indie than thou attitude. Although the humour factor present in tunes like 'Song For Delia Smith' is debatable, once Mr Smith leaves the annoyingly Ben Folds-esque piano behind and picks up his accoustic he becomes are far more serious proposition. A touchingly tender voice combines with a folksy finger picking style to produce some genuinely moving melodies which save the day. Forgetting the lines to your own songs though isn't big or clever.

On the anniversary of Hillary's asscent of Everest, perhaps it's apt that The Mountaineers scale similar heights tonight. Their sound may be as hard to pin down as a two man tent in a gale, but it sees them move far beyond contemporaries travelling similar paths such as Athelete and Turin Brakes. Crucially they combine electronica with accoustic guitar ln a way that seems neither contrived or pointless. The unusual time signatures recall their former label mates The Coral but the whoosing prepulsion of tracks like 'Self Catering' seem more like Air if they remembered to write pop songs again. It's an impressive and highly original sound which hits far more impassioned peaks then their rather annonymous image hints at. Thre's plenty here to admire and a deal with Mute Records should see them evolve even further. Sherpa Tenzing would be proud.