MUM brings the party to Sydney's Kings Cross every Friday!

There was a time when, in Sydney, Thursday became the new Friday... Health Club and all that. Then, Wednesday became the new Friday with The Wall mixing arty times and party times. Well, things have come full circle because now Friday is the new Friday. Down in Surry Hills you've got the fantastic Last Night, while, in Kings Cross, World Bar hosts MUM, the epic indie party spread across three floors, with a staggeringly cool mix of live bands and quality DJs (and we're not just saying that because Bobbysix is often represented behind the decks).

Take this Friday at MUM, for instance. DJs will be spinning the latest, greatest, weirdest, edgiest, coolest, danciest, mentalist tunes between ear-bleeding live sets from Let Me Down, Jungle Man, Grams, The Rubens, Corpus, The Ganaschz, Simo Soo and Vulture Culture. So, get yourself along to World Bar, order your favourite teapot full of yummy booze and get ready to dance your fucking legs off.

More deets can be found here.

Metronomy - The English Riviera

New line-up, new sound. If second album, Nights Out was a messy-yet-fun affair, then The English Riviera sees Metronomy deliver a slice of deliciously tight indie-pop. More than ever before, the English band actually sound like, well, a band.

Joseph Mount, the group’s vocalist and creative force, has always been able to pen a catchy tune, but on this third long-player he has really refined the Metronomy sound and created a clean sounding, coherent record that, as the name suggests, is a perfect representation of the rather delightful charm of the English summertime.

Amid smooth bass-lines, catchy electronic organ hooks and laid-back guitars there are fresh and perky tunes here, like lead single The Look. The album’s sweet and hopeful tone is best illustrated by the rather lovely Everything Goes My Way. On it, newbie Anna Prior offers a disarming Charlotte Hatherley-esque vocal amid oohs and handclaps. “It feels so good to have you back, my love/I’m in love again,” she chirps, before frontman Joseph Mount pops up to turn it, slightly surprisingly but wonderfully, into a duet. “I’ll never up and run,” he replies. “I’ll stay right here.” It’s really rather heart-warming. Later, The Bay shows that Mount, even when largely going back to basics, still likes to push his sonic boundaries as the song whooshes and swirls through synths and harmonies.

The English Riviera presents itself as the feel-good album of the summer in England, and rightly so. This is a fine record, and certainly Metronomy’s best to date.

Review by Rob Townsend

YellowFever - YellowFever

In between meandering around their home country in a beaten up old hippy wagon, Texas’ YellowFever have released a handful of singles and EPs, which are brought together neatly in this 11-track compilation.

YellowFever offers minimalist art pop, with a guitar, drums and a couple of vocals allowing big open spaces that are occasionally filled with cheeky twangs of surf guitar or organ. Jennifer Moore’s voice is nicely detached in a Nico kind of way and is complimented by harmonies from Isabel Martin, as YellowFever sing simple and whimsical tales. With lyrics like, “The cutest boy I ever saw was drinking cider through a straw,” YellowFever’s songs are hypnotic, and, like indie nursery rhymes, will get stuck in your head between plays. With anti-folk leanings, comparisons to Moldy Peaches are perhaps inevitable (especially now that the trio has become a duo, after Martin permanently relocated to New York), and there is a similar cuteness about them, but they probably land closer to Young Marble Giants, or maybe what Vivian Girls would sound like if they didn’t drown their songs in guitar fuzz.

YellowFever is certainly rudimentary, but, while this sparseness is enjoyable in itself, the chronology of the tracks also shows pleasing progression in the band’s sound. The fact that the later songs are the album’s strongest - most notably the excellent Joe Brown - bodes well for YellowFever’s first proper album, which is due for release next year. For now though, this sweet, thirty-minute taster will sit well with those who like their indie to be lo-fi and DIY.

New Young Pony Club - The Optimist

Taking New Wave influences and turning them into posturing New Rave disco was undeniably fun but, despite boasting some shimmering songs and a gutsy frontwoman in Ty Bulmer, New Young Pony Club always came across as poorer cousins to the likes of Klaxons. Three years on, with New Rave being little but a memory, one might wonder how relevant the arrival of a sophomore album from NYPC is. However, while Klaxons interminably stutter over the release of their follow-up record, it turns out that NYPC have grown up and changed with the times.

Self-produced, self-funded and self-released, The Optimist leaves aside the smutty winks, nudges and the shiny, throwaway disco of Fantastic Playroom in favour of a tighter, darker sound with lyrics that show genuine emotional depth. Lost a Girl opens the album with Bulmer taking a deep breath before bursting into a quick-fire verse that shows a newfound vulnerability to her lyrics, “I’m making you smile/Why am I doing that?” Some great hooks, crescendos and big choruses later, and it’s enough to make the once delicious Ice Cream seem flimsy and banal in comparison. This strong start continues with Chaos, as Bulmer’s deliberate drone morphs into another catchy chorus over handclaps.

As the album ebbs and flows, the occasional brooding moments - like the electro-ballad, Stone - counterbalance its dancey edge, giving things a well-rounded feel. The Optimist is the sound of a band shedding its glossy skin and showing what’s inside. Put simply, this is a really strong comeback from New Young Pony Club.