Standard Fare are back. With a cracking debut album! I'm an old indie softy really & will always cherish honest, earthy guitar pop like this. 'The Noyelle Beat' occasionally sounds like a stripped back, less technical Los Campesinos without the arch studious pretention & slapability. But then I'd say their heart is pretty old skool. And heart & spirit is what this 3 piece have in spades. They kick out a really rattly, janglesome & passionate racket and I have to say Emma Kupa's vocals are a major drawing point for me, they're so pure & slightly wonky & flat you can't help but fall in love. Brett thought she was a man but her tomboy-esque wail ain't nothing as deep as that lass from Beach House!! There's spots of early Delgados in there but they sound decidedly Northern English and pretty timeless at that. The single 'Fifteen' is still sounding crispy fresh, frozen in time from 1991's twee underground but now with scuffed DMs and bruised knees, giving off an aroma of sneaky cigarettes & cheap cider. To load a debut with this many great songs is criminal. Warmly recorded to capture the modest dynamics of a 3 piece, there is plenty of variation here but the distinctive stamp of Standard Fare is woven strongly throughout. Just the ticket (groan!!!)
Love this record? Hate it? Tell us.
Sound clips for The Noyelle Beat by Standard Fare: on CD at Norman Records UK. CD, Melodic, MELO065CD, £11.29.
Standard Fare may be named after a sign spotted on a bus, but the effect is anything but pedestrian – these Sheffield indie - poppers are the kind of band whose name you’d happily scrawl on the cover of your school exercise book. A power trio comprising Emma Kupa, Danny How and Andy Beswick, they’re set to release their debut album, The Noyelle Beat, jointly on Melodic and Thee Sheffield Phonographic Corporation.
Packed with lovelorn tunes, youthful energy and Emma and Danny’s brilliantly balancehis ‘n’ hers voc the album is sure to be warmly received by fans of such kindred spirits as Camera Obscura/Los Campesinos/Pains Of Being Pure At Heart.
Recorded in six days with an indie aesthetic that would have made John Peel proud, the album is named for a formative period in the band’s development when they travelled across the channel to play at a festival in Noyelles Sous Lens, France. “It was where we felt our sound came together,” says Danny, and the collection of songs they were playing became The Noyelle Beat.
Standard Fare met when Danny (from Buxton) and Emma (from York) were playing in other groups as teenagers. When those projects fell apart, the pair resolved to work together, and poached Andy from Danny’s brother’s band. Early practices were held in Andy’s loft in Buxton, “and then in his Nan's living room when they got too loud.” Music is a family business for Emma too – her mother was in ‘80s anarcho-punks Poison Girls.
TRACKLIST: 1. Love Doesn’t Just Stop 2. Nuit Avec Une Amie 3. Philadelphia 4. Wrong Kind Of Trouble 5. Fifteen (Nothing Happened) 6. Let’s Get Back Together 7. Secret Little Sweethea8. I Know It’s Hard 9. Married 10. Edges & Corners 11. Dancing 12. Be Into Us 13. Wow
