What you have with a band like Distophia, though, isn’t just a cross between three of the greatest nineties American bands; …Trail of Dead, Pavement and Sonic Youth. What you have is a band that I want to be the soundtrack to my feeble life, and what every other kid picking up an oversized electric guitar rebelling against their Phil Collins-loving parents should want to sound like at first, i.e. intelligent, loud, sarcastic and, well, brilliant and better than a tsunami sandwich (politically incorrect – Ed). ‘Soda Lake’ was a good EP/LP type thingy with noisy guitars, shouty lyrics, nonchalant changes of tempo, that soft-loud-very fucking loud thing (crescendo and tremolo – Ed), messy middle eight/ending only t’Yoof managed to pull off successfully nearly twenty years ago (twenty years ago already! Blimey) and live Gary Glitter would struggle to better them. But these guys have the imagination and personality to take this current retarded genre of ‘alternative’ unchallenging music, rape it silly with integrity and put it back where it should have stayed; in the apathetic arseholes of Middle English record labels and the wet dreams of mongoloid NME ‘writers.’

From what I gathered, their new album, ‘Beat Dyslexia’, has even more gems to try and break the force field of this piss poor 80’s American invasion. ‘Starvation Cove’, new single ‘Children Know the Score’, and all out spaz noise closer that was introduced as something like ‘What the M.I.L.F,’ but I can’t remember, I had a headache by this time, a beauty induced one might I add, sound like they’ve upped the wall of guitar death rattle, added a few more sprinkles of pop and few more dollops of dynamic inventiveness, that’ll surely make it this summers greatest English album and them one of the best English bands. Eff-Ay-See-Tee. FACT.

Anyway, what’s worse than watching a band called Athlete? Watching a band that is a piss bag watered down Athlete and called The BreadMakers(?). Actually no I’ll correct myself; they also mixed into the formula a tiny bit of Maroon 5 just to add to their elusive coolness. Why would you want to sound like this? Why would you want to embrace banality with two hands and shower it on the world like severely painfully acid rain? Please stop, if not for my sake then for the sake of music itself, religion, eardrums and premature babies hanging onto their existence everywhere. If they hear it they’ll unplug their own life support machines. You’re about as useful as an Anti-bullying wristband. Fuck off. Also, The Bexley’s were shite too.

Matthew Gilbert