Pop needs more bands like this. Not skinny jeaned clad hipsters. Not young upstarts suddenly starry eyed. Not meaningful and morbid ‘thinking’ bands. Straight up exciting songs from a bunch of mates who know how to use their instruments to great effect and  for great sounds.
Debut album A Slight Distraction has been bubbling up inside The Standards for a while now. The sharp observations and soothing contemplations that strike through these ten songs have evolved over countless gigs and years. This means that copious influences, from life and music, abound and make the pervading genre other that of a mature and pithy gaze at life.
There’s the summer fair sound of Resignation Waltz,  the wind in the hair chorus of  Speed Up, the Jarvis lilt to the vocals on  Mice, the Franz Ferdinand beat opening Slow Down (which you can get for free here) and the lamenting yearning of Drowning, When You Found Me which breaks into a very noughties dance beat complete with oohs, and the almost 80s Romantics chord finishing off She Came To The City.
Neil Winspear‘s voice is that of an outsider brought to the party, and the whole album is wrapped in that delicious pop gloom, a slightly off kilter reality that makes the sound tangible. Everyone from The Independent to FHM, BBC 6 to Feeling Gloomy have lent their support to The Standards, and if you like what you hear, remember to come down to It’s All Happening Fridays on October 26th at The King’s Head, Acton.
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LHn1zSfNPDU]

Reviewed by Francesca Baker

My initial thought was ‘Oooh, they remind me of Pulp.’ Anyone who knows It’s All Happening, or myself, will aware that this is emphatically. A. Good. Thing. The occasionally venomous lyrics plinky piano and bouncy melodies employed by The Standards are used to an alchemic effect to create a songs so catchy that your find your heart beating to them long before your head starts to process them. All this is true on latest single Mice, offhand comments made in a slightly soiled yet soothing voice tossed amongst moody riffs as it swerves with menace to a ridiculously simple and catchy chorus. Despite being doused in Carnaby Street style, there are some surprises chucked in; the trickling guitar post chorus sounds almost Catalan and even the la la la’s sound like an essential ingredient in the quest for the perfect pop song. Love it.
Mice by The Standards