B-Town

Whenever I tell people I’m from Birmingham, I feel the need to apologise.    

For one reason or another, it’s not the sort of thing you really want to brag about. In the music scheme of things, we’ve never had much to offer. Apparently we invented Heavy Metal, but to be honest I’m not sure whether or not to feel guilty about that.
If you listen to the Birmingham Music Press you will learn that our long regional radio silence is to be broken by a new scene, artfully dubbed B-Town. On hearing the term ‘B-Town’ for the first time, I had the impulse to be violently sick, but after finding out that the alternative was “West Madlands”, I decided it was the lesser of two tacky evils. On the face of it, this poorly-titled scene is really just another branch of indie, played by people with a fascination for 90s guitar music. At its best, it’s noisy guitars and tight tunes. At its worst, it’s hipster kids in bad clothes playing overly-echoey Joy Division rip-offs. Currently it tiptoes halfway between these two extremes, and it remains to be seen which way it will go.
In its present embryonic form, the B-Town scene is basically Peace and some other Peace-like bands.

For those of you who haven’t heard of them, Peace are four oddly dressed non-Brummies whose debut album In Love is hit and miss. Armed with whooshy guitar pedals and their abstract, occasionally nonsensical lyrics, this summer they made it to the cover of NME, and this was arguably where B-Town truly found its feet. Notwithstanding much of the dross on the album, Peace have begun to develop a loyal following on the strength of singles ‘Lovesick’, ‘Follow Baby’ and ‘Wraith’. These almost-hits are well worth seeking out, but only time will tell whether Peace can truly live up to the hype.
Unfortunately, a lot of Peace’s mates on the B-Town circuit are slightly more pretentious rip-offs of 80s/90s indie rock; all competing to wear the baggiest clothes and look the moodiest in photos. These bands have found more popularity than some of the less abstract stuff happening in the Birmingham music scene, mostly because they’re all going to each other’s gigs and drinking together in the same pubs. But if that isn’t a scene, then what is? And in amongst the double-denim and the curtains, there are some true gems being uncovered.
Superfood, for instance, are head and shoulders above their competitors with their self-titled debut single. Groovy, rocking, and just generally, er, good, it will very quickly become your newest earworm with its chorus of “You’re always hungry”, what ever that means. Also, former second-rate indie twiddlers Dumb have released a single called ‘Retina’; a song which has nothing to do with eyeballs and everything to do with a good ol’ rock song.

So, despite some sub-par songs and questionable fashion choices, there is definitely something that works here. Who knows? One day I may not have to apologise for Birmingham any more.