MNFB has been dribbling away for almost a year now (new year’s resolution – write about more music in 2009), and just recently the emails have started to become much more regular. The really nice thing is, the mails have started to be addressed to My New Favourite Band, rather than just being a name in a massive mass mailout. Must be doing something right I like to tell myself.

So anyway, Dublin four-piece Delorentos. They sent me a nice email with a quote from my old pal Jim Carroll who claimed in The Irish Times that their debut album, “In Love With Detail”, was one of the best Irish debut albums of 2007, which sounds like a backhanded complement, until you listen. And if it’s good enough for Jim, I usually listen.

First thought was that it’s a shame they weren’t around at the backend of the Nineties – if they were Melody Maker would have been all over them like one of those nice rashes you get when you like stuff. Having been in more MM cover meetings than is healthy for one lifetime, I would say that a cover wouldn’t have been out of the question. I’m sure I’m also not wrong when I say this lot are probably much, much better live than on record. And on record they sound pretty flipping good.

There’s something of the early U2s about them, with that thrumming, sparse punctuating bass rumble and the chiming guitar, but there’s also the infectious pop mongering of my particular favourite Dublin sons, Ash, chucked in for good measure.

No slouches, this lot have got it worked out. Check out their MS for further proof if it were necessary that it looks and sounds like Delorentos more than ready to take a step up.

More hear…
- Ver space where you’ll discover ‘All This Time’ isn’t typical of their spiky pop thrum. Further listening is a must.
- £5.96 gets you their debut album from the music journos clearing house of choice, Amazon Marketplace.

Norwich, England, on an almost winter Sunday night isn’t nearly as glamourous as it sounds. What? Oh. The draw tonight is the promise of seeing Francis & Louis at a record label launch in a pub called The Birdcage, but used to be called The Pottergate Tavern, in the olden days. I know this because I used to work in record shop just up the road, in the olden days. Back then, if people wanted to listen to music, they had to buy the stuff from somewhere. Imagine.

So, anyway, Francis & Louis. Moshi Moshi’s gentle 10-year trundle into your ears has been like a country-sized carpet being slowly unrolled. So much so, it seems as a label, they have been generationally inspiring, if that’s an expression. If it’s not, it is now.

As James – my guide for the evening – points out, the eight bands on show here do 21st century punk rock. Punk rock where the young are mildly annoyed by stuff, and everyone sits down. Singers, audience, the pub cat, the lot.

Much to my amazement, it’s quite a treat.

The label, Bare-Feet, is the brain child of Leeds-based producer David Nickerson and Norwich musical royalty, Alex Carson. A rummage is worth your time as it will serve up some real curios – we like The Middle Ones enormously, and think Chessboard Fanatics are interesting, if the piano got more of a workout, and the banjo less of one.

Francis & Louis, though, are a class apart as James knows, which is why we’re here. The sound – a small PA in a small backroom – is the same for everyone, yet F&L sound fuller and richer through it, and have considerably more thrum than the other seven acts put together.

Louis, or Lucy to her friends, is utterly captivating, playing a guitar like a drum – twanging out a bass rhythm, she adds a thump here, a tap there – it’s the old Jack White trick of making more sounds with one instrument than seems poss.

But it’s the singing bit where F&L really step up. Louis takes the lead with an unnerving wobble to her voice that is almost spooky and at times sounds so delicate, so fragile, scooping it up and putting it in your pocket to keep it safe seems sensible. All the while Francis’ more powerful voice – while wandering in and out, seemingly unplanned and like it was the most natural thing in the world – acts like the punctuation marks. I’m assured there’s more and better to come, that they can swap lead vocal duties with ease and that Francis has an extra gear which is quite, quite gobsmacking.

Being on a bill with seven other acts, and on a Sunday night to boot, means only three songs. But for now, that was quite gobsmacking enough. We’ll settle for the goosebumps at 20 paces, thanks very much. It’s all quite, quite magical.

More hear…
- The MS, natch. Wondering at what point to bands start choosing names based on MySpace availability?
- Check the ‘infix mix’ of the corking ‘Right Or Wrong’ on their MS. There’s something vaguely ‘Sing It Back’ about it. F&L, also available for disco dancing.
- If you are in Norwich, England (no idea why you would be, it is in the middle of nowhere), the girls are on at the Arts Centre on November 28.