Honeytrap: Andy the Freefaller

Debut single release from Coventry four-piece, Honeytrap, shows two very different sides of a coin. The shining new penny-piece belongs to 'Andy the Freefaller (Part 1)' which arrives with the giddy, tipsy euphoria of your long-lost uncle at a summer wedding garden party - not exactly cool, but dancing away to the covers band, bucks fizz in hand, without the slightest regard for his public image. Despite the barn-dance cum Camper Van Beethoven aesthetic, it’s not entirely a harmony-laden happy-go-lucky affair, with lyrics tracing the sad tale of terminal worrier, Andy: "You put your money away for a rainy day while everybody is enjoying the sun / Your face clenched tight every night thinking of all the things you have not done."

The tarnished side of the coin, 'Death Before the Silver Screen', is no inferior relation to its predecessor, but is a shaky, insecure public breakdown, evoking the silhouettes of movie-stars who never quite were; surrendering their 1950s selves to the bottom of the bottle and the corners of seedy Los Angeles bars. Singer Little Dan comes over like a more understated, younger, Morrissey, but laced up with the graceful descent of a time-worn Hollywood failure.

As a debut release, it reveals a band who are pulling together some of their most disparate influences (from their website: “Jean-Pierre Jeunet, dog trainers, old jazz and Italian food”) and using them to explore some less-trodden areas of the pop universe. Whether the influence cross-pollination is always going to work is an uncertain matter, but at least someone is trying it, and in this case, pretty much pulling it off.