Captain Black: Sister

When Camden’s Hawley Arms burnt down early this year, Britains outside of London all quietly hoped that the so called ‘heart’ of Camden had indeed been ripped out. Home to the likes of Johnny Borrel and countless numbers of Carl Barat’s long lost identical twins, it symbolised the current NME music scene all too well. Unfortunately, however, it seems this also killed off Captain Blacks’ first chance at the big time.

Released on the Hawley’s Arms own label, Bumpman Records, the song’s release was delayed indefinitely whilst the clear up was carried out. Eventually released late in June, most publications that had not reviewed it prior to the fire missed it completely (but of course we haven’t…reviewing it in August when I happened upon it at the bottom of the pile of site promos!). Which is a shame, because this is a genuinely good vageuly folkish-pop song. The easiest similarity would be The Kooks’ sound with Blaine Harrison on vocals and the dissonant piano of Cold War Kinds’ ‘Hang me up to dry’.

Except good.

This is a song that hit #1 on the Japanese indie chart, despite no-one over here having heard of them. Its stylish, layered and peppered with great lyrics. Shine On has just started playing on the radio, so I’m going to end here before I rant on anymore about the injustice in this having been missed totally and pray that their next offering is to this standard.

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