You know it's summer when...

a clap of thunder rumbles indiscriminately over Vampire Weekends' Mansard Roof' ceasing any enjoyment of the record from the outset.
This happened yesterday, on a day when the weather was about as consistent as a Glastonbury punters bowl movements.
I tried to listen to the rest of the album but it's sunny disposition failed to sit comfortably amongst rain battered window panes and heavy,brooding skies. So I put on 'Hits' by
The Birthday Party and Nick Caves antagonistic, gothic drawl became somewhat of a fitting repost to a slate-Grey London afternoon that teetered on the edge of pathetic.
























Like many bands evolving from the defunct-punk scene, The BirthdayParty reveled in a creative freedom that saw their mutant concoction of punk and jazz-blues vie for space in an already over-crowded melting pot of post-punk, new wave and new-romantic bands.
There distaste for commercialism and insistence for making music on their own terms, i.e. a hybrid of dark-wave and post-punk meant the door that welcomed the likes of The Fall, Gang of Four and Joy Division was held firmly shut in the face of The Birthday Party. This only had the effect of spurring Nick Cave on to push their experimental sound even further,which ultimately made The Birthday Party one of the most influential bands of the last 40 years.


It's only been apparent in the last 2 years just how influential The Birthday Party were.
Int he summer of 2005, The Horrors spawned from the dark breeding's of Cave&Co released their debut LP 'Strange House' to a generation that thought interpol were as dark and dangerous as it got. The album was an instant cult hit and a string of live shows and support slots, notably with the Arctic Monkeys, caused ripple's of discontent amongst the Fratelli loving beer-boys but galvanised the art and book club recluses into kick-starting a scene that reeked of individuality and creativity.Since then, a whole host of bands have not only picked up the baton but they've run with it, passed it on and smashed it round the head of every irrelevant scmindie act out there, leaving them bloody and useless on the strobe light-lit dance floors of the UK.

Here's our pick of the bands that are heading the most exciting scene in music today, Dark Wave:

Ipso Facto











Televised Crimwave













Lord Auch












KASMs
















SCUM