Thursday 21/07/05 The Sunshine Underground, O Fracas @ The Faversham, Leeds

When you skim a stone across a still lake, you’re looking for that optimum angle to ensure the maximum number of skips. The inanimate stone seems to come alive, resisting its own destiny – the inevitability of sinking – for just a few short moments. The better the angle, the more times the pebble defies the natural relationship between stone and water. O Fracas find the perfect angle every time, and their songs - dense, jagged shards which all logic dictates should sink like stones, instead take flight in the most unexpected ways. It isn’t the case that sheer forward momentum keeps them aloft: time and time again the Leeds four-piece deploy devices – stuttering drum rolls, disjointed guitar interplay – which should by rights send them into a tailspin. Truth is, Gigwise can find no earthly explanation to how O Fracas works, which can only be a good thing.

The Sunshine Underground, another local group, are sadly a tad earthbound by comparison. They're anthemic without ever really stumbling across an anthem to sing, and make a great big insubstantial noise. Much like fellow tykes The Music, the songs are little more than grooves; interesting guitar work and relentless disco drums can’t rescue the drearily pedestrian nature of the songs. The vocal is mixed distressingly loud and, as with The Music’s Robert Harvey, the over-emotive wail has a numbing effect on the listener, until every tune blends into the next. On occasion the guitarist’s FX-laden lines can go a long way to saving the situation, but too often he relies on cheesy whooshing noises and novelty samples, which finally drown The Sunshine Underground in a sea of mediocrity.