(Post-Punk, Alternative, Indie) Batteries (Steven Clark) - Batteries - 2015, MP3, 320 kbps

This year’s red-vinyl Record Store Day release from manic poppers Bis brought back some happy memories. It was also nicely timed as an overture to the latest solo venture from Steven Clark (aka Sci-Fi Steven). The self-titled debut album from Batteries fizzes with post-punk energy across its 12 tracks, poking you in the ribs with arpeggio riffs that are all angles and elbows. Less chaotically hardcore than, say, fellow Glaswegians Dananananaykroyd and We Are The Physics, Batteries sounds a bit like Franz Ferdinand, if that band had dogged off double maths to rehearse in a bedroom rather than grow arch at art school. Listen closely to Rumour Vs Lie, or the way the electropop verse of Destroy My Machines is subsumed by nasty guitars, and you'll hear, at their core, classic pop songs that have been given a punk makeover; and that's basically what you're getting across the set here - a succession of great wee tunes dressed up in slightly ripped clothes. There's an edge to some of the lyrics too: "Put your bones away and put your clothes back on," urges Anorexia Poster Girls.