Low vs Diamond

Low vs Diamond are named after a former member's girlfriend, who had a Yoko Ono-esque propensity for sticking her oar into the band's business and winding up Diamond something rotten. They called her Low and she and the drummer used to have arguments, verbal skirmishes, battles, so...

Article continues Anyway, only a year after playing around town as Colored Shadows, Low vs Diamond are being hailed by Music Week as "debutantes of 2007 so far" and are recording their debut album, influenced by the sumptuous chord changes of Burt Bacharach and the cerebral grunge of Smashing Pumpkins.

Skinny, nerdy-cool, Low vs Diamond are looked after by the Killers' manager and signed to the Killers' original label. They've got the louche energy of the Strokes and the shiny sound of early-80s Simple Minds. Equal parts CBGBs and the Big Music, they're Television produced by whoever turned the aforementioned Scots' New Gold Dream into a chimera of shimmering pop perfection.

There's a sense of melodrama about Low vs Diamond - although there's nothing mellow about them. Field, unassuming offstage, permanently Raybanned onstage, uses an impressive array of vocal tricks: warbles, melismas and croons, with shades of everyone from Ians Curtis and McCulloch at their most baritone deep to Buckley Jr and Bono at their most cloud-strafing. Meanwhile, the band are already playing stadia in their minds.

The songs sound derivative and trad at first - I'll Be is horribly reminiscent of U2's With Or Without You, and Stand Up peddles a bog-standard epic rock - but new approaches and nuances are revealed with successive listens. Heart Attack is driven by furious syncopation while on Life After Love the guitars ring postpunkily. Lyrically, they're not exactly straight edge: Stay Awake, with its machine beat worthy of Joy Division, is about a close friend's heroin addiction. What's not to like?