Answer The Shallow Call At The Box (From Crewe Guardian)

Answer The Shallow Call At The Box

2:35pm Tuesday 30th June 2009

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NORTHWICH indie band The Shallow Call headline at The Box in Crewe on Saturday July 4.

Brought together through a love of The Smiths, Clash, Love, Phil Spector and a shared bemusement with life, they began to write songs about casual sex and casual violence.

Early demos were produced by Steve Powell (The La’s, Shack, The Coral) garnered their first commercial release on the Power Overload compilation through Manchester’s High Voltage label.

By 2007, an increasingly loyal following and raucous outings with The Enemy, Reverend & The Makers and The Paddingtons culminated in their debut release proper.

Entitled Frank Bruno, it was an iron-fisted, velvet-gloved analysis of Englishness, of self-deprecation and of misplaced faith in lovable, eccentric, glorious failures.

Clint Boon, Jim Gellatly (XFM Manchester & Scotland respectively) and Colin Murray (Radio 1) collectively swooned.

Steve Lamacq saw fit to name it his Single Of The Week, calling it 'some of the most well-observed pieces of lyric-writing I’ve heard in years, quite special indeed'.

No-one in London really liked it, but the band didn’t seem to mind.

Fellow Northwich inhabitants The Charlatans would go on to invite the band as support at a sold out gig at the Manchester Ritz.

And bass player Martin Blunt would produce their second single Where We All Hand Around, aided by the ubiquitous Jim Spencer (New Order, Johnny Marr).

Support comes from Crewe bands The Varlets and The retrospective.

Doors are from 8pm. Tickets are £5.

For more information visit www.theboxcrewe.co.uk.

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