So people moaned about the name, moaned about what we wore onstage, ignored the fact we drove around the country, booking our own shows, assumed we were making mega bucks and discounted us from the race…
Never mind.
Our EP was released in the midst of much to-ing and fro-ing and right slap bang in the middle of a recession. Not just in the economy but a recession in music. A bunch of people are attempting to keep the dream alive all around the country but it’s hard and it shows. A drunk 40 year old dude at one of our shows turned to me and said
“The big bands just get bigger and breaking bands just ain’t breaking”
Which was probably the most insightful thing I’d heard all year, that and“STOVIES!” and a whole manner of indistinguishable insults and onslaughts from our buddies up in Scotland.
anyway, i shan’t bore you with my musing’s any longer. We managed to release and EP with the help of Smalltown & Killing Moon Records.
it looked like this:
The ever insightful media and press gave the following reviews:
“The Muscle Club have produced an accomplished debut in Fragmented Ideas From Young Lungs… ‘Ithaca’ sandwiches harmonics between handclaps seething vocals spat between not-quite-guitar solos and cacophonous percussion…
The Muscle Club are instantly gratifying. There is a familiarity within Fragmented Ideas… their sound but this makes for comfortable, rather than unchallenging listening. This constant conflict between pop and a more angular sound is reminiscent of Idlewild, or at least before they turned into beardy old cunts.
By the time the understated bonus track kicks in, The Muscle Club will have stolen your heart. Frenetic, familiar and bloody good fun,Fragmented Ideas From Young Lungs could well be a late contender for debut of the year. Four sweaty boys with guitars might not tell you much about your life but sometimes you just have to figure it out for yourself. After all, it’s just music…right?”
BEARDED MAGAZINE
“If Pete Doherty still made music that mattered – stuff like the Libertines debut – it might sound something like this debut mini-album. Because although The Muscle Club and Doherty are, really, worlds apart, there’s something in the dual vocals of Michael Bateson-Hill and Matthew Hitt that conjures up the same reckless spirit alongside a very English charm. Yet these guys are inspired as much by postpunk/ hardcore acts like Fugazi and At The Drive-In as they are by the likes of The Smiths and The Clash. It means that songs like ‘I’ve Never Read Anything’ and ‘Alright! Okay! You Win!’ jangle and fizzle with self-doubt and self-pity while simultaneously bursting with youthful exuberance and energy. Intelligent, visceral
and far from fragmented.”
THE FLY MAGAZINE
“Fragmented Ideas From Young Lungs is a rip roaring mini album that blasts through six raucous ditties, full of vigour and carefree misgivings. The quartet from Cardiff offer a jovial explosion of indie rock that fills the body with a heightened sense of giddiness. This gluttonous, riff heavy, cohesion is refreshingly simplistic, delivering jaunty melodies in hedonistic bundles… It provides a heady combination that has you purring, in reminiscence, for the days when Pete Doherty and Carl Barrett could share a nonchalant lyrical dual.
Album closer ’Alright! Ok! You Win!’ is an anthem of masterful persuasiveness. A natural showstopper, its roaring chorus and flowing melodies provide exactly the kind of carefree riposte to society that you would expect from a fledgling band muddling and struggling to get their debut out. What makes The Muscle Club credible is that they’ve taken the swagger and refined it into a cohesive, unremitting sound.
Gavin and Stacey may choose Snow Patrol and Arctic Monkeys to narrate their episodic dreams but the real sound of Cardiff flows from the sweat filled crevasses frequented by the self-proclaimed indie elite. Here life is not narrated, rather tempered with jaunty sounds that suitably summarise the ups as well as the downs. And it is in these idyllically filthy venues that The Muscle Club have fostered and developed. There’s still a tender edge and exuberance to the band, which is perhaps unsurprising given that they formed a little under two years ago but, nonetheless, Fragmented Ideas From Young Lungs is a persuasive calling from a band with an exciting and tantalising future ahead.”
THE PLAYGROUND MAGAZINE
