So the line in the old poem goes, sort of. Or, if you’d rather;
“Saturday’s Kids play one arm bandits,
They never win but that’s not the point is it,
Dip in silver paper when their pints go flat,
How about that? Far out!”
The Jam – Saturday’s Kids
Anyway, these Saturday’s Kids are a group of lads from South Wales who are to release their self titled 5 track EP in June on Art For Blind/Time As Color/Strictly No Capital Letters.
The group, consisting of Sion Thomas (vocals and guitar), Rhys Briggs (vocals and bass), Jordan Everitt, (guitar) and Matthew Green (drums), got together in 2008 while they were still just sixteen and since then have released three vinyl releases split over five DIY labels, toured the UK four times supporting bands such as HEALTH, Lovvers, The Shitty Limits, Taint and Islet and are currently touring Europe. So yes, I think that line from the old poem about Saturday’s child is pretty bang on the money!
The band say that their main reference point would be punk rock, but these tracks stray a long way from the usual simple 1,2,3,4 thrash, this is far more in the realms of Trail of Dead, Fugazi and other post-hardcore bands of that ilk. The five tracks featured here play around with tempo and time signatures, they are allowed space to breathe and are as long as they need to be, from two minutes to the second track on the EP, “Neurological Design” that clocks in at just under seven. This gives them far more life, depth and re-listenability than a lot of the “new music” championed by national radio. These five tracks also feel like separate parts of a whole rather than individual tracks, which gives them another connection to Texans …And You Will Know Us By The Trail Of Dead who with this year’s “Tao of the Dead” want to resurrect the album experience where you invest time to let the album surround you instead of just getting a quick one track fix.
That a bunch of guys just out of school can create songs with the scope that these do is pretty damn impressive. It’s so refreshing to hear stuff like this from a young British band as opposed to the indie-by-numbers that is churned out by other “young” bands such as Brother or The Enemy, instead of trying to make a fast buck, these songs tell me these are guys with a large record collection and a passion for recording and playing the sort of music that they want to, no pandering to the mainstream to get in the iTunes chart!
You can listen to (and download if you so wish) the entire EP via the Soundcloud widget at the bottom of this post, and if you are in the field of booking bands then book them for somewhere in Leeds soon as I’d really like to check them out! Contact Andy Hawkings for info (brightlightspr at yahoo dot co dot uk)
South Wales' Saturday's Kids
"I Prefer Their Old Stuff" 