Brain Fade

I thought something was wrong with my radio at first when I was listening to "Raw Talent" on BBC Radio Humberside tonight.

A band called Cosmo Jarvis kicked off the show - which runs from 8pm until 10pm - with a song called 'She's Got You' which was a simple and enjoyable, percussion heavy song. Then a band called Eureka Machines played their tune, 'Living in Squalor'.

I was quite enjoying 'Living in Squalor' and it kept me interested enough to put down the book I was reading for a moment. Then it started to fade out and I walked over to the desk to write down the band's name so I could keep an eye on them for the future.

But as I did, the song faded up again... I stared at the offending DAB radio. Had I affected the signal when I stood up?

Then the song faded down again. Then up again. Then down again.

Why do bands do that?

The first time I noticed it was on the Kooks first album - "Inside In/Inside Out" - with the song 'Time Awaits'. Initially I thought it was really clever and innovative - flouting our normal understanding of how song endings work.

But then it realised that it was actually just a bit naff. I started wondering whether they had made mistakes on the recording and they were just trying to mask it.

Then a more horrible realisation hit me - even more horrible than the Kooks second album - they were trying to be clever. They were trying to be different.

Don't get me wrong here, I think the Kooks are a great band. That first album was the soundtrack to one of the best summers I have ever had.

But their music can be quite samey at times, and I saw the random fading in and out on that track as being a fairly perfunctory attempt to inject some much needed difference.

But Eureka Machines did not need to be different - they had my attention.

Fortunately, the night was not lost to unjustified grumpiness. The next band played, the reasonably well known Saving Aimee, revitalised my good mood with their offering of "We're the Good Guys".

This was foot-tapping brilliance in the tradition of a summertime tune, complete with the obligatory 'wo-oh-ohs', and is also the name of their first studio album to be released on the 26th of October.

Based on that evidence, I would recommend checking them out. They are in Bristol at the O2 Academy on the 22nd of October.