HONEST ROB
Rob is a rapper from Cardiff, which shows when he says “we used to kick it like Bellamy,” Craig Bellamy being his go-to reference for some football wordplay. This is a line from Leeches, his debut song, and the past tense is because of the leeches of the title, presumably less honest than he. Delivered in a languid, singsongy rap style that belies the lyrical exasperation, I’m most drawn to the production here: smeary, trippy keyboard melodies with interjecting ‘splashing water’ effects. NG
NAMES
Here are the young men – two of them to be precise – looking fed up in their black and white press shots. Pembrokeshire’s Names have a little bit of form prior to Backs Turned, their inaugural song, but this stirring piano-driven pop melancholia bears little resemblance to Ffug or Cpt. Smith, their other bands. Part Elliott Smith at his most lowkey, part gothic cabaret, Ioan Hazell switches from English to Welsh for the final verse, an unusual but perfectly valid move. NG
THE TATES
Staying in west Wales, and with yet another standalone debut track, it’s Carmarthen quintet The Tates. Electric Girl is very smoothly produced electro-indie with awful lyrics and considerable vocal processing; despite their two stated influences being The Libertines and New Order, it’s as unavoidably 2010s as a tray of dropped Jagerbombs. Comes with artwork featuring two young women about to share a kiss, reflective no doubt of Liam, Tom, Matthew, Jac and Shaun’s collective commitment to unbridled sexual tolerance. NG