The Sheffield Scenester

This four piece from Sheffield begin the EP with a straight in your face track ‘All In The Eyes’...loaded as it is with classic 70’s punk riffs while lead singer Mark Fletcher not so much sings...rather commentates throughout a song that seems focused on urban voyeurism. Coming across as a gritty modern day reaction to the blissful ignorance of The Beatles ‘Penny Lane’...it still carries a punchy yet catchy tune. The odd thing about Marks voice...at times it almost has an American twang to it, which adds character and venom to the proceedings.

Secondly we have the track ‘Kevlar Hearts’, a heavily rhythmic number with bass, drums and guitar piling in at full force, while a note driven guitar is laid over the top to balance out this mayhem. The song itself is a hell of a ride...but with a running time of only 2:03 appears to be cut short...which is a pity since it is a great tune, not knowing what a Kevlar heart is...I googled it only to find a whole load of blurb about super strong fibres made by DuPont, but somehow that didn’t come across in the song. The next song, ‘Napoleon Syndrome’, takes us away from the punk thrashings of the opening songs and brings in a slightly more Indie slant to the proceedings. You still have Marks near hoarse vocals belting out...this time he’s employed a slight warble to enhance everything...quite effective really. Also the guitars come across strongly through the entire length of the song... heavily influenced by The Cribs, which leaves you unable to resist the relentless hard-hitting beat. The final track ‘The One That You Dream Of’ has a totally different sound opening...with a quick burst of an eighties power ballad on the drums, before we are blasted by a doom laden rhythm that Black Sabbath would be proud of! It just seems to pulse along with such an intense grind you almost miss it when it is down-played to make way for the vocal track...even the solo is a more structured affair than on previous songs. Without doubt this is the best track on the EP as I’ve always had a thing for a Sabbathesque grind...but this doesn’t detract from their opening tracks, combining classic 70’s punk with its modern day equivalent. If you want to find out for yourself then The Usual Pleasures are playing at West Street Live on Tuesday 16th March.

The Ratells

From its opening chords courtesy of a haunting yet playful guitar riff you are instantly hooked. To compound this - a delicately understated bouncing bassline is then added to tempt us even more. Finally we are hit with Ash Holland’s vocals; I was pleasantly surprised at the maturity in his voice containing an emotional quality to back the subject matter of the song. The song itself laments the joys and heartbreaks of life and love in a northern town, lyrically the adult themes that run throughout are addressed with a maturity that belies their age. As a comparison I played their previous EP ‘Pretty Girls And Wandering Eyes’ and it’s like listening to two different bands! Back then they were full of teenage angst and fair enough that’s what they wrote about, but as with all teenage bands there comes a time when enough is enough, The Ratells have reached that point and raised the bar both lyrically and musically.

With this new direction and a growing fanbase the widespread recognition that has eluded them to date must surely be within their grasp, if they stick to their guns. While still retaining the core beliefs of a good catchy tune but injecting them with a dose of adult complexity, all their fans should love this single. The Ratells themselves claim this song is “something we’ve been wanting to do for a while, bigger and more epic”, using this as a blueprint for the future they should have no problems in moving beyond the Sheffield gigging circuit - they will in fact be playing the main room at the O2 Academy on April 17th as part of a regional tour.

As an added bonus for readers of this article (who would like to buy this single) - go to and type in the code sheffscenester01

This will give you a massive 20% discount off copies of the CD!!!!!