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If there’s one thing that DiS has proven itself very, very good at over the past couple of years, it’s predicting what bands are going to matter to you, the readers and listeners who make many a musician the money necessary for their country mansion and Poole Harbour-anchored yacht, next year. That’s the way we like to roll, sometimes a full twelve months ahead of the industry at large*, and with this trend in mind we’ve divided our Bands For 2008 into three separate articles: Early Doors, Next-Steppers and Certifiable Successes.

Words: Alex Denney, Mike Diver, Gareth Dobson, Kev Kharas, Samuel Strang

* For example, last year we featured Foals, Los Campesinos!, Youthmovies, I Was A Cub Scout and Blood Red Shoes – all of whom are releasing their debut albums in 2008.

Fanfarlo
It's the theoretical musical line-up that always sounds alluring. Mention ungainly-sized bands that contribute violin, mandolin, saw, trumpet, glockenspiel and sax to their sound, and it's enough to get any self-respecting indie boy a little moist. Fortunately for Fanfarlo (home: London by way of Gothenburg, birthplace of lead 'Farlo Simon) they have the songs to match the ingredients. Think a worthy addition to the world inhabited by Broken Social Scene, Sufjan Stevens, Beirut and Clap Your Hands Say Yeah and then add a whole lot more danceability. Next up for the collective is to issue a split 7" with the glorious Sleeping States (February 25) and then the acts are to play shows around the country. There's an album demoed and ready to record – all they need now is for someone to “help flaunt it (a label, perhaps?)”. A SXSW jaunt is also planned (budget permitting). On a more esoteric but wondrous level, the group claim that "2008 is also the year we take up mountaineering. We will do a string of shows in the Himalayas some time in July. Oxygen is supplied for free but you'll have to bring your own tent". Insert ‘giddy heights’ comment here… GD
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Abe Vigoda
Tropical punks with a penchant for a toxic wash of noise-pop, Abe Vigoda hail from Los Angeles’s current crop of artists that underground DIY bunker The Smell has been spitting out, synonymous with the leftfield brilliance of No Age, BARR, Mika Miko and HEALTH. As dub, calypso and gamelan influences all find themselves beached on the same shore, away from Vampire Weekend’s bland eclecticism, Vigoda provide something fantastically erratic. As cacophonous shards of summery noise hail down like rats scurrying from the sewer, their chants echo round, sun-scorched, under a convincing pop pretence that underlines the potential these deranged college kids possess. SS
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Telepathe
Filling a void between the girl group shenanigans of The Shangri-Las and the neo-tribal stomp of Gang Gang Dance, Brooklyn banshees Telepathe (pronounced tel-ep-ath-ee) manage to satisfy both pop purist and avant-garde cravings. Busy Gangnes and Melissa Livaudais provide the central pairing with others (Lane Lacolla, Ryan Lucero) previously adding to the spiralling skewed pop. With their debut record, produced by TV On The Radio’s industrious album-fiddler Dave Sitek, waiting in the wings, label-less though they presently are Telepathe provide the esoteric spirit of Effi Briest set against stark splintering electronic hooks, rather than drifting ocarina epilogues. As with fellow highly-tipped Brooklyn outfit MGMT, rarely have such haunted pop frolics seemed so essential. DiScover feature, forthcoming. SS
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Banjo or Freakout
Flitting between Turin and his girlfriend’s Hackney flat, the grazed bedroom soul of Alessio Natalizia’s Banjo or Freakout has settled more and more into the pages of DiS over the last few months. What does he sound like? Click here and here; if you find yourself at work and thus without the faculty of your ears, close your eyes and imagine Noah Lennox haunting the more ambient work of Arthur Russell. Sam Strang says, “hollow delirium”, and there's the sound of hammer hitting nail on head, both for Russell and Natalizia. Tipped by DFA chief Jonathan Galkin and interesting the best London labels, expect to hear lots more in 2008, after Banjo or Freakout’s third gig at the Monto Water Rats in Kings Cross later this month (details). KK
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Atlas Sound
There are several pointers that have DiS keeping a close eye on Deerhunter’s Bradford Cox. The most intriguing is the suspicion that rather than missing absent bandmates, his cumbersomely-titled solo debut will see him rise brilliantly to the fore; so varied and prolific is his output at his ‘blog. The tracks posted there, as well as shimmering original tracks, include an ever billowing archive, a shit-tonne, essentially, of cover versions; some faithful, some adulterous. Where sometimes the dazed wash of his collaborative effort lulls ominously towards boredom, the prospect of hearing Cox unclouded is an exciting one, as a – yes – true personality and what our scouts tell us is referred to as a ‘star quality’ abound in him. Let the Blind Lead Those Who Can See But Cannot Feel is out February 19 via Kranky. KK
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Beestung Lips
Hailing from Birmingham, perhaps the greatest thing about this punk four-piece is that they themselves don’t yet seem to realise how fucking brilliant they are. Plaudits are stacking up – their debut EP, Songs To And From An Iron Gut (review), got a few critics foaming at the ears with its six slices of excellently acerbic and hook-filled histrionic-core – yet live outings are presently few and far between and, as yet, the band haven’t been noticeably proactive in pitching their talents to the wider industry. With an album almost certainly due in 2008, though, they’re perfectly capable of ‘doing a Gallows’ and expanding their audience into previously unexplored demographics. The pop-schooled immediacy is certainly there, albeit buried beneath hella noise. Taking cues from The Jesus Lizard, Brainiac, Hot Snakes and a number of literary influences, the band’s volatile mix is infectiously impressive. Catch them live at March’s DiScover Club. MD
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Photo: Toby Price

Broken Records
Edinburgh’s Broken Records are a success story in waiting, a band whose commercial potential is bleedingly obvious from even the most cursory of investigations into their material to date. Unsigned at the time of writing, their music recalls myriad touchstones – Bright Eyes, Cursive, Bruce Springsteen, Arcade Fire, Dirty Three – without coming across as a deliberately tailored patchwork of familiar echoes and traceable roots. While many acts building a live and online following – the level this seven-piece are presently at – sound far from the finished product, Broken Records’ best moments, collected on a self-released EP (review), feel like the real deal ahead of schedule. Providing they’re able to tour properly in 2008, calling into enough of London’s venues to tickle the fancy of our capital’s critical gig attendees, the next twelve months should set one of the nation’s most promising new acts up perfectly for a full-scale assault on the mainstream in 2009. Expect your skin to prickle delightfully if you catch them anytime soon; Londoners, be sure to call into April’s DiScover Club. MD
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Johnny Foreigner
Birmingham-based trio Johnny Foreigner already have an impressive EP under their belts – Arcs Across The City scored a better-than-impressive 10/10 on this ‘ere site (review) – and their debut album proper is forthcoming. Recorded in New York with a man known only as ‘Machine’, whose previous credits include Fall Out Boy, said long-player is to be preceded by a single, ‘Our Bipolar Friends’, in March. Fun times we’re anticipating, especially as the perky JF crew remind us of some of our favourite things: Kinsella wonky rock, dance-punk-dance t’ing a la Bloc Party by way of Q And Not U, and Blur. A bit Blur. Like, early Blur… jump about your room Blur. Basically JF make us jump about the place. Or maybe not Blur. We dunno. But something pleasingly and instantly familiar. JF: the party band of 2008? Maybe. Catch them at January’s DiScover Club and then on tour with Los Campesinos! in February. MD
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Photo: Amy Brammall

Eugene McGuinness
Given a bare-bones description of Eugene McGuinness’ output to date you’d be excused for giving him a berth as wide as Jack Peñate’s face: that familiar jaunty outlook, the predictable whimsical leanings and tales of urban dysfunction... But even a cursory introduction by way of fabulous single ‘Monsters Under The Bed’ revealed an impeccable pop sensibility – think The Shins on Broadway – and a lyricist capable of making the most verbose of compositions glide with twinkle-toed grace; form and content in an unassuming package. With not a jot of flabby introspection in sight, McGuinness is as sharp a tunesmith as they come, his best melodies possessing a tumbling complexity that made their succinctness all the more remarkable. Don’t bet against him shimmying on out of the leftfield with a bona-fide pop breakthrough in 2008. AD
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Wild Beasts
We’ve said it before and we’ll say it again, but Wild Beasts are the most inventive pop band this country has produced in, well, time. Possessed of not just one but two great singers – Hayden Thorpe’s peculiar falsetto, bassist Tom’s sturdy tenor which is essentially the sound of a man who’s been sucking too hard on extra strong Fisherman’s Friends – the band’s dogged otherness will prove a headache to some – but you’re better than that. Dancing to a tune entirely of their own making, would it be sacrilegious to envisage Wild Beasts pied-pipering the Mercury judges into a nomination later this year following the release of their debut full-length on Domino? No, no it wouldn’t. Catch them live with School Of Language and It Hugs Back at a special DiS show in London on January 24. AD
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