Our friend Chris Martin (no, not that one) at NME Radio has been throwing out a few top bands for us to check out. Here are his top 5, in his very own words. Thank you Chris!

Bombay Bicycle Club

Sometimes bands come along with pretensions of being the next to cross the audience boundaries, be loved by children and small animals and do arena tours, retiring at the age of 35. More often than not, they don’t pull it off because they sound like Keane or Starsailor and thus should be shot. But then sometimes a band comes along with such perfectly crafted indie tunes that you start to feel that there can’t be a soul alive that won’t like them. ‘Always Like This’ was Record of the Week for me back in April and on of the most beautifully subtle tracks released this year. Their brand of grand sweeping indie is as perfect as Interpol, but replaces the drowning misery with joyful hope.

Listen if you like: Larrikin Love, Maccabees, Arcade Fire

www.myspace.com/bombaybicycleclub

The Phenomenal Handclap Band

Multiple members, somewhere around the 10 person mark, could end up and bit like Slipknot (5 people making the sound, 4 others looking scary banging oil drums). These guys skip neatly past that to make a sound that builds on disparate influences. The result is, if not phenomenal, the really very good. Elements of LCD Soundsystem’s attitude to making dance music with a band are in there, although they are far from just another rehashing of punk-funk. Dance, funk, and classic rock are among the influences I can pick out and they create something that sounds different and fresh. It is possible to have hype over substance, I’m sure we’re all awaof shoddy journalists riding whatever wave that’s coming along as the next self fulfilling prophency. Putting it this way, one measure of how many people like the music and ignore the hype is how many emails I received along the line of “I really need to know who did that song”. “That song” is ’15-20′ and I’ve had more emails about it than any other song in the last year.

Listen if you like: CSS, Foreigner, !!!

www.myspace.com/phenomenalhandclap

Hairdresser On Fire

Every week I go through every single band that friend requests us at NME Radio’s myspace page and play out the best of them on the show. Using the public as a barometer, these are the one band to have tickled people’s interest most so far. They hail from Indonesia, and play brutal assaulting punk rock tinged with the same attitude and disdain that Courtney Love brought to Hole’s first two albums. I love them, and fingers crossed someone will be signing them for the UK soon.

Listen if you like: Mclusky, Dead Kennedys, Hole

www.myspace.com/wearehairdresser

The Joy Formidable

Most bands release an EP or two, or some singles until someone comes along and signs them for an album. Not The J oy Formidable, already they’ve self released a mini-album of musical gems called ‘A Balloon Called Moaning’/ What’s better is they’ve combined an enigmatic title with limited edition hand-printed artwork. Word spread about the project and it sold out before it was even released, probably helped by ‘Cradle’, ‘Austere’ and ‘Whirring’, rousing tracks that sound like what Editors were aspiring to achieve but didn’t really hit. Rousing, anthemic, touching, destructive, defiant and joyful. These guys are writing some of the best music in the UK at the moment.

Listen if you like: Placebo, The Jesus ad Mary Chain, Manic Street Preachers

www.myspace.com/thejoyformidable

Dinosaur Pile-Up

If you’ve listened to be at any stage of the last decade or so you may have heard me utter the words “this band are going to be huge” quite a lot. Sometimes it’s a statement of desire rather than belief, this time I think the desire and belief are matched. I remember saying that about Leeds band Mother Vulpine, who irritatingly split up about three months after I said it. No worries though, former Vulpine Matt Bigland has continued with Dinosaur Pile-Up and not since early Foo Fighters have we seen such consistency and stomping brilliance in rock music.

Last time we did Top 5 Records (in print!), Chapman Family and Pulled Apart By Horses were in there. So add these bands together with Danananakroyd (who incidentally DPU will be touring with this autumn - Ed) and is it possible we’re going to be seeing a punk and grunge inspired revival? I for one would be deliriously happy about that.

Listen if you like: Early Foo Fighters, Weezer, QOTSA

www.myspace.com/dinosaurpileup