Mistys Big Adventure + The Retro Spankies + The Stations - Messclean, Portsmouth. 15/09/05.

The Stations are a young four piece playing indie rock, think along the lines of a heavier and slightly more interesting Coldplay and you'll be heading in the right direction. They combine some new wave taughtness with modern indie jangle and while their cover of 'Sitting On The Dock Of The Bay' may be a bit wayward it shows they have an appreciation of classic songwriting that they are trying to bring into their own tunes. The Stations show promise at times but lack that extra spark just at the moment.

Spark is something The Retro Spankies have plenty of as they land at Messclean having arrived from another planet with big glasses and doctor outfits. They rest their keyboard on an ironing board, it's these little things that make bands great; musically they mutate weird freaky child like nusery rhymes with Bis stlye punky punch and lots of trashy lo fi pop, feed it a space ship load of drugs and set it free. It's quite unlike anything out there and it is fantastically brilliant and bizzare and you can't help but watch in awe as the jerky beats take over unsuspecting limbs and they lay eggs of insanity in your weakened brain.

A perfect way to prepare for MBA, who are back for a second visit within a couple of months but still the people of Portsmouth have not realised the brilliance that has come their way again. I'm telling you, they will be sorry later on as word spreads of blue gloves and manic fun to be had. Really I don't need to say much as they are just as brilliant this time round as they were the last and in the meantime VP mainman Skif has caught them too so check his view out over on the VP main site. If you love quirky timed pop, splashes of cut up jazz like the Cardiacs on day release then MBA are the boys and girls for you.