I Like Trains
Uncut Stage
Sunday, 13.35

Persistence has always been part and parcel of the I Like Trains mentality. It's reflected in their songs about dogged (and not infrequently doomed ) historical characters, and their clear intent to keep going despite the vagaries of the music business, and losing the member who did so much to contribute to their visual aesthetic through beautifully crafted animated videos. No longer signed to Beggars, the Leeds gentleman adventurers are looking to release their next album in the next year. You can hear their determination it in ‘Terra Nova', that wonderfully elegiac tribute to Captain Scott that is their opening salvo. Focussed and intense, the fourpiece sport identical black and white trouser shirt combinations and military jackets, rocking sternly as they follow up ‘Terra Nova' with a new number that seems to be evidence of a new electronic influence on their rusticated charms. Another new track seems lyrically to deal with joining the great majority by means of nautical misadventure. They close with ‘The Sea Of Regret', with it's wonderful line on human morality, "I will leave it to the scarabs and the crows". This, not the hackneyed crowd-pleasing Coldplay moping of Editors and White Lies, is a true exploration of the British gothic. I Like Trains are surely one of our most cruelly underappreciated groups.
Next: Wild Beasts