• Michelle Margherita
• Paul Scott

Ever had your heart broken? The Bad Machines have. From car-crash whispers to white-picket desires, The Bad Machines' songs about life, love and lies flip from longing to loud in the murmur of an irregular heartbeat.

Not just another album of ordinary love songs, Michelle Margherita's lilting voice drips sugar over Paul Scott's grinding guitars, off-kilter beats and giddy keys to produce a shimmering electro-indie-pop gem that sits not entirely comfortably between bitter-sweet and just plain bitter.

The Bad Machines aren't the usual girl-vocal/boy-technology pop duo. Fusing sadness and light with noise and nuance, 'Telling Lies' seamlessly stitches drum machines and synths with guitars and song hooks. Shifting between indolence and high energy, the album gets the blood rushing with bubblegum-punk tracks like Two Heads and Kidz before simmering down with hypnotic, minimally textured beauties like the title track, 'Telling Lies', and its sister tune, 'Folkways'.

On stage, The Bad Machines are a chaotic mix of instrument swapping, guitar throwing, judo moves and stark stillness. When they rock, they really rock, but they also know how to be quiet, which gives their live shows a powerful, electrifying quality.

Are they indie? Kind of. Rock? A bit. Pop? Probably. Electronic? Definitely. The fleeting Electroclash movement stole the soul from electronic pop. The Bad Machines put it back. But we could just be Telling Lies.