The Courteeners, whose name may be spelt wrong a couple of times throughout the following post, are another guitar-strumming, swaggering indie band from Manchester that whilst bearing some similarities to the Children (see last post in “Local Delicacies” feature), they’re centered slightly more around the vocal talents of Liam Fray and even have more of an acoustic element to them. In fact, said front man previously worked as an acoustic singer-songwriter until he tired of the lonely life on the road and got himself a band to play in. Since forming, they’ve gathered a considerable fan base in the city and have been traveling round, playing phenomenal live gigs and swelling the ranks of their indie army even further than before.

As is usually the case, it’s difficult to hear a wide range of material from such a small band but rest assured that before long they’ll be playing bigger venues and releasing some decent stuff for us all to listen to. For now, though, I’m restricted to listening to the only three Courteeners tracks on my ipod; Acrylic, Bide Your Time and Fallowfield Hillbilly. Each and every one of these tracks has been downloaded from the band’s Myspace page. This is quite a nice thing, too, as nowadays it’s not that easy to find a band that’ll let you download their tracks from Myspace, however small they are.

The first track by the Courteeners that I heard was Acrylic, so I’ll start with that. It’s not quite as acoustic as you may have been led to believe by my previous comment. In fact, there’s nothing acoustic about this particular track. It’s got some pounding drum beat, banging away in the background which is what provides the real energy to this song. Evidently, it’s the quick fire guitars that add to the cheerful and uplifting mood of the song. It’s not too heavy on the heart and part way through the song I could swear that Liam Fray sings the line “There’s not enough paper in the world“. Perhaps I’m wrong, though. The “Da da da da da da daaa” lines that are distributed in between most of the verses certainly don’t hinder their ability to please a crowd, either.

Moving on from Acrylic, the other two songs provide a varied look at the way this band works. First of all, Fallowfield Hillbilly is a bit of a rant if you listen to the lyrics, showing they’re not all about worldwide paper shortages - as pressing an issue as it is in today’s world. As well as this, the band demonstrate a wonderful, more gentle sound in Bide Your Time, which gradually builds up during the song to produce a changing mood which goes from the slow almost-acoustic opening to the all-out indie finale. Though it may only be a small collection of three songs, I’m really enjoying listening to their music and it shows signs of an unsigned band on their way up the ladder, and one which is doing so at gathering pace.

Whilst the Children that I mentioned last time are a good band, they don’t ooze the sound of something that’s going to be making it big any time soon. The Courteeners, on the other hand, have something which in the space of just over a year, has quickly become mainstream-worthy stuff that a record label is sure to snap up before long. Until they do undergo that record label snapping, you’d be very impressed with what you can hear by heading over to their Myspace; the link for which is listen below.

The Courteeners - Myspace

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