(11-track debut LP/ 2002/ 'Lowsley sound recordings')
I don't believe it! A few years ago I got in touch with Liverpool teen-freaks Zombina & The Skeletones and reviewed one of their early demo tapes (that included the ooger-booger brilliance of 'Ape Man') and interviewed them. Fast-forward 3 years, and after losing touch with 'em, who's album should catapult itself through my letterbox and straight into my CD player but theirs, such as the wonderment they elicit in their music.
I forgot how great they were. I was glad they've got round to releasing their debut album. I can't believe that the average age of a band member is just 19. How time, er, hasn't seemed to have flown afterall!
These 5 boys and girls are the new Beach Boys, with more pop in this half-hour disc of genius than in an entire soft drinks factory.
Instantly you know tongues are in cheeks (or more likely somebody else's tongues are in their cheeks, in-keeping with their Goth-leanings) as the buzzsaw guitar of 'The Grave & Beyond' boasts this band's greatest traits. Their hugely poppy melodies and light-hearted wit is the mainstay, yet 'Nobody Likes You When You're Dead' ('If I still had eyes I'd surely cry') - with its more jagged, Rachel Stamp-ed Glam-punk sound - is the coolest anthem.
Incredibly, the 'Christina' lament is so sweet, so kitsch and so chorus-driven ('And down from the sky a dead star will fall for the ugliest angel of them all') that you can't help but think of Belle & Sebastian, while 'Can't Break A Dead Girl's Heart' is another breathtakingly quirky pop anthem that dearly reminds of Shampoo's and Kenickie's greatly-missed and zestfully irresistible fun spirit, as I foam at the mouth� totally over-awed and re-inspired.
Long live Zombina and crew. And death to the rest. (STEVE RUDD)
www.zombina.com