Issue 523

Right, I'm going to try really hard to review the wonderful 'Keep Calm Carry The Monkey' without spending the entire time going on about the album packaging. In short, this has some of the best packaging you'll see this year - the whole thing looks like a library book (complete with Dewey decimal number!) and upon opening it up you'll find cardboard cut outs and album information divided into individual, colour-coordinated folders.

The good news is that the music lives up to the promise of the packaging, and 'Keep Calm Carry The Monkey' is where singer/songwriter Mark Lang (no relation) and company come into their own. In a time where the term "indie pop" has become a self-serving catch-all phrase for music as cynically constructed as anything on the top 30, Skipping Girl Vinegar manage to find real passion, pathos and fury from which to create their mini symphonies.

Just check out Chase The Sun, which opens the record in a joyous burst with a hook that feels genuine, a rhythm section that appears to be hyped up on red cordial and Mark Lang's wide-eyed vocal flying over the top. It's exhilarating and it makes you feel happy (but not in that "it's-so-happy-I-have-to-punch-someone" style of The Polyphonic Spree). What follow are a diverse set of incredibly strong songs, with solid, layered production and a sense of grandeur to contrast the intimacy of Lang's vocals.

At times they touch on moments of Okkervil River-esque melancholy with tunes like You Can, and only a few tunes later can be furiously stomping through dark, Johnny Cash-meets-Nick Cave style country on Hell Out Of Town. Yet throughout they remain distinctly and defiantly themselves. At the end of the day underneath all the pretty packaging and the layered production Skipping Girl Vinegar have real identity and talent, something sadly lacking in these days of disposable indie trash.

Patrick Lang