BABY BRAVE

On the evidence of their latest ‘King Horse’ EP out last week, Baby Brave are set to seduce our ears in coming months. They craft summery guitar pop of the exquisite kind, rippling with the ghosts of shoegaze, C86 and mid 80s art-pop; the outer tip of Wales has turned up another group with the ability to glide through genres and produce an individual sound that’s capable of making it out of the principality! It’s typified by the effortlessly besotted jangle of sublime opener ‘Oyonnax’ which shivers giddily with unrequited passion over the playful boy/girl pop signatures redolent of the B-52s and laced with a kick ass guitar lick that has a real bite. In clever French singer Emmi Manteau, they have a voice of grace and might possessing a multi-dimensional quality: sinewy and knowing yet delightfully bittersweet, redolent of the attitude The Long Blondes’ Kate Jackson in one breath and in the next graceful with the weightiness of Kirsty Macoll.

‘Colours’ further beguiles a moodier beat, rippling guitars and Manteau’s ornate introspective yet playful anglo-french lyrics decorate this beauty that unfurls majestically. ‘Jitters’ cements the feeling that Baby Brave are something really special, tumbling drum beats and muscular rhythms cascade majestically. ‘Wrists’ in contrast is almost gothic; menacing bass and drums, pierced by plonking pianos and Manteau’s nightmarish vocal, treads closely to the sound of early Esben and the Witch and depicts a group bristling with a diversity and arsenal of sounds.

Words and Tipped by Bill Cummings from God is in the TV Zine