Harry Paterson

It’s usual, at the fag-end of a year, to cast a retrospective glance over the preceding months’ musical offerings and compile those ubiquitous lists; top ten best gigs, top ten best albums etc.

This year, though, I fancy a change so instead here, in alphabetical order, are my top ten British breakthrough bands for 2012. Bands, mainly unsigned who, thanks to a combination of musical excellence and commercial nous, I feel are well placed to either ink that all-important deal or, in the cases of those already signed, make that leap to the big time.

As is usual with such subjective exercises, part of the fun for the writer is lapping up the outraged howls of the partisan and offended. Those types affronted and appalled you’ve excluded their favoured combo. To those, I’d say just this: firstly, my chief criteria are musical proficiency but also, crucially, commercial accessibility. Your turbo-charged, city-levelling, nuclear-blast, death-metal carnage might well be the greatest musical offering since JSB’s forty eight preludes and fugues but it’s unlikely to breakthrough to the mainstream any time soon, now is it?

Secondly, I simply may not have heard your band’s material or seen them live. A colossal amount of music crosses my desk all year but not all of it, OK? And while I might well be aware of your act, I’m not nailing my colours to their mast without the benefit of actually having heard/seen them strut their stuff.

And thirdly, it’s my bloody list so I’ll include and exclude who the hell I feel like!

I’ll cheerfully admit most of the acts here are personal faves. The sort of bands for whom, were I not a music journo and privileged to get their stuff for free, I’d happily shell out my hard-earned for the pleasure of hearing.

Finally, don’t let any of the above stop you venting your spleen and treating me to a delicious rant. The comments box is there for your use and so, without further preamble, let the hate begin…

A Thousand Enemies

There were many who thought Isolysis would be signed before 2011 was out. The outrageous but charismatic singer and the talented but studied guitarist were a personal and musical yin and yang that resulted in song-writing magic. Frustratingly, just starting to realise their impressive potential before the band split, it was not to be and Bane and Beardsley went their separate ways.

Bane took Isolysis drummer, Dave ‘Rickstein’ Wright, with him and, with the addition of former Two Minutes Hate alumni, Harwood and Andy ‘Snakes’ Goulter, formed A Thousand Enemies. The magic ingredient was added when unknown guitarist, Phil Wilbraham, completed the line-up.

The combination of Wilbraham’s classic rock-style melodicism and the heavier more modern-sounding attack of Harwood provided the perfect foil for Bane to create his best work yet.

Introductory single, And Nothing Remains, gave notice that here was a new band with something really special to offer but it’ll be tracks like Let Me In which will demonstrate that Isolysis was merely the apprenticeship.

Expect A Thousand Enemies to blow up your video in 2012. You’re gonna love this mob.

Awake By Design

These fellas specialise in rich, sumptuous textures, melody and atmospheric musical conjurations. There’s a very Gothic feel to some of the material. Ethereal, elegiac and drenched with pathos none of that gets in the way of the rock, however, and singer and keys man, Powell, deploys his musical forces with the knack of a born star. In the middle register, he even sounds eerily like Geoff Tate and that cannot be a bad thing.

I’ll come clean and admit I’ve not seen these chaps live but I’m assured by those who have that they’re something special. In any event, their album stands on its own two feet.

Grandiose, epic metal infused with passion and drama, Awake By Design deserve signing if anyone does.

Captain Horizon

Now then; the list’s joker in the pack. Eccentric, quintessentially English, prog-infused meanderings meet the slamming rhythmic vibes of Rage Against The Machine and end in something quite unlike anything you’ve ever heard before.

Fronted by the sand-paper-and-whisky-voiced Steve ‘Whitty’ Wittington, the Horizoneers are hard at work on their début album and as those of us privileged to have sat in on some of the recording sessions will tell you, this is an act absolutely born for stadiums.

Guitarist Watson’s Edge-like subtlety and restraint provides wide-open spaces for melodies to swoop, soar and fly and as a live act they are beyond criticism.

Unique, distinctive and utterly apart from the herd, if these lads aren’t signed by this time next year then proof will have been provided that the Great Architect has permanently left the building. Either that or he’s a West Life fan…

Daylight Robbery

Proof-positive that when it comes to music, there is nothing coming out of the USA that we can’t do at least as well. Yes indeed.

For those enamoured of the melodic pomp of House of Lords or the infectious tunefulness of Journey, Daylight Robbery are the discovery of the year.

Great songs, a great singer, a tighter-than-a-duck’s-arse rhythm section and guitarists with feel as well as technique, these guys will remind you of the days when Bon Jovi were a great band, when Autograph were turning up the radio and when the 80s seemed like one decade-long summer holiday. All the core ingredients are brought bang-up-to-date with added Brit grit, real flare and a seriously generous quantity of hard rock.

If this were 1987 they’d already be as big as Def Leppard. As it isn’t, they aren’t but don’t let that stop you getting behind another superb, home-grown act with the goods to go all the way.

Evil Scarecrow

Already extant for nearly a decade, it’s something of a travesty the Scarecrows aren’t already signed or at the very least regulars at Wacken.

While the school-boy smut of Steel Panther, mystifyingly, wows millions it defies reason Evil Scarecrow aren’t similarly revered.

Last year’s triumphant slot at Bloodstock ought, surely, see the loveable panto metalers finally getting the break they so richly merit and if there’s another band that so expertly blends all the things that make extreme metal so appealing with such inspired comedic genius, well, they’ve yet to be invented.

Parody is an art and the quintet paints their comedy soundscapes with the deftness of old masters. Apart from all that, with a gap in the market so big it’s a veritable Nietzschean abyss, there’s an army of A&R suits missing a huge trick. For feck’s sake wake up and smell the money, you idiots!

JD & The FDCs

For exuberant, feel-good tunes expertly fashioned in modern garb, look no further than Jamie Delerict and his cohorts. Some call it punk, some pop, some might even think it’s metal. It matters not.

Aided by no less a personage than the great Dazmondo, one of the most authentically rock ‘n roll guitarists you’ll ever hear, JD and his FDCs craft radio-friendly nuggets of pure rock ‘n’ roll brilliance all infused with a sly pop sensibility.

If the likes of Green Day and Blink 182 can score number one singles, it aint hard to imagine Mr Delerict sticking his hand up the skirt of the top twenty to cop a cheeky feel. And while we all know mainstream radio stations consist of stupid music played by idiots, it should be illegal for any station anywhere not to have Burn This City Down on its playlist.

Saint Jude

High Voltage appearances, Chris Kimsey producing your debut album and a press cuttings file approaching the size of the Doomsday Book, Saint Jude are surely set for stratospheric heights in 2012.

Groove-laden, old-style rock ‘n’ soul is their stock in trade and it’s all effortlessly delivered by, arguably, the best female rock singer currently working anywhere in the UK today.

Lynne Jackaman brings a Joplin-esque earthiness to the band’s Black-Crowes-meets-the-Faces-style workouts and the results are nothing less than delicious.

If you haven’t yet heard Diary Of A Soul Fiend then do so now. Let’s face it, you’ll need to know the words when you flock to the stadiums Saint Jude will be playing soon, as you desperately bullshit you were there at the beginning and always knew they’d be famous.

Toxic Federation

Like Isolysis, many predicted the Feddies would be signed by Xmas. Well, thanks to their former front man, Mitch Emms, timing his departure for the eve of their third album’s release, after painstaking negotiations had secured a prestigious distribution deal, closely followed by guitarist, George Coleman, throwing in his towel, it looked like the wheels were off the Federation Express.

However, having been invited to a rehearsal of the new, heavier, down-tuned, single-guitar line-up, fronted by a new singer, yet to be officially announced, take it from me that 2012 will see Toxic Federation back bigger and even better than ever.

The new vocalist is a find and a half and while he doesn’t have his predecessor’s range, his predecessor doesn’t have the new man’s innate masculine timbre and much more disciplined diction.

Reborn, refreshed and re-energised, this is the best Tox Fed line-up yet and if the live shows can replicate the fire and energy of the studio sessions, then their future is golden.

Voodoo Johnson

A nine-out-of-ten review for Midlands Rocks when their latest E.P. crossed my desk, the months since have only confirmed that assessment. What a bloody great band Voodoo Johnson are.

With new singer, Taylor-Stoakes, and lead six-string slinger, Carl Gethin, lifting their mates to even greater levels of expression, the smart money must be on VJ inking their monikers on a major contract before 2013.

Bluesy, soulful, gritty and grinding, in their hands the great sounds of seventies classic rock are reimagined with style and vision and presented with the impact of a rocket entering hyper space.

Fecking marvellous.

Voodoo Six

A lot of the above applies to this gang, too, but with a very different sound Voodoo Six are no one’s men but their own.

Latest E.P., Falling Knives, is nothing less than a revelation and you are strongly advised to become acquainted forthwith.

Luke Purdie’s distinctive voice gives the band a sound uniquely theirs and their take on classic rock is a white-knuckle ride through some of their grooviest riffs committed to disc.

It’d be a very stupid man betting against Voodoo Six leaping to the next level in 2012.