Perhaps prematurely, your reviewer scoffed when confronted by most of the 'London's Burning' set put forward as the new sound of tomorrow by the dear old NME last summer. Not that - with hindsight - I feel I have any reason to change my mind where the likes of Art Brut and the risible Selfish Cunt are concerned, but certainly bands who I might have dismissed as obvious also-rans previously (not least The Others) have very happily since proved me wrong.
The same may possibly be said of chirpy, East End mod-pop upstarts THEE UNSTRUNG, who since signing with Mr.Midas himself, Alan McGee and his Poptones label, have started to achieve the impossible and get good. Their previous single "Contrary Mary" sounded like Blur's little brothers ramraiding in a Cortina with bald tyres, and this new single is another fun-packed, nigh-on three minute mutant Motown-mod rush with a ridiculously irreverent terrace chorus chant of "She was a psycho and she came from Bow/ and the psycho chased me down Whitechapel Road". Hur hur: there's nothing like writing about what you know, eh?
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Anyway, it comes garnished with great Mick Jones style "whoa-ohhs" at the chorus (no, strike that - all the way through actually), features some nicely meshed guitars from Steve Holbrook and Ben Bailey and has been produced with the minimum of fuss from East End guvnor Chris Difford of Squeeze, so at this stage a modicum of respect is surely due.
"Psycho" is breathless, daffy pop fun and the very epitome of 'exuberant.' It also serves notice that the apparent runts of the litter are beginning to grow up big and strong. Excellent. It's refreshing to be proved wrong on occasion.
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