Short Shorts Rock Paper Dynamite - Days Of May (Echo Park) Hard as week old French bread and catchy like Ebola, Rock Paper Dynamite, a Nebraskan quartet with stars in their eyes, rip it up and spit it out on their seven track debut mini-album. Coming on like a power pop variant of Kings Of Leon, they wrap soaring vocals and head turning tunes around a grungy, gritty Southern core - an effect which is both extremely easy on the ear and an invitation to grin like a loon. Though seven tracks is about right - you’ll probably want more. Rob F. Joshua Singleton - S/T (Independent) Joshua Singleton’s self-titled record may claim country influences (see his MySpace page), but he’s far too eager to turn his guitar up and wail like a Memphis soulman to impress the Nashville crowd. Good. His Stonesy stomp, big riffs and organ washes, appear to have materialised from another age, when rock dinosaurs walked the Earth, and the only thing Robert Plant would want to do with Alison Krauss is unmentionable on a family website. Rock and roll with spirit and soul - you know where to go... Rob F. Telephant - Asleep In Green (Independent) Remarkably, this Nashville band sporadically sound like they come from 1980’s Manchester. They don’t care about the cut of your jeans or whether you’re a dancer, but they demand you acknowledge their post-industrial happy vibe and their superior record collections. That’s not a problem, most contemporary bands are a product of their record collections and we shouldn’t chastise Telephant for knowing their post-punk indie from flowered-up Krautrock. Of course, they’re never quite as grim as you’d expect, thank goodness, and the songs are exceptionally solid throughout. Think ambitious, spacey, psychedelic pop, with George Martin approved strings and things, and you wont go far wrong. Rob F. www.myspace.com/rockpaperdynamite1 www.myspace.com/joshsings www.myspace.com/telephantband Next