The Bolshoi, Giants

The Bolshoi’s debut: six songs of swirling, rapturous guitars, caramel baritone vocals and countless influences worn on puffy-shirt sleeves. There’s nothing terribly original here (saying that The Bolshoi touch upon ground explored by Bauhaus and The Chameleons is exceedingly generous), but The Bolshoi pull it off with style and panache, not to mention enough dramarama to choke a goth. Finding the hilarity and profundity in rainy-day despair that only the British can ever really effectively evoke, Trevor Tanner’s lyrics bring the schoolboy’s listless daydreams to vibrant life on standout track “Happy Boy”:

Such a happy boy today
Blew my family clean away
Going to university...

It’s difficult to get any more British than this track, unless your name happens to be Stephen Patrick Morrissey. Ah, the British. It was nigh impossible to get good coffee in English restaurants and the pubs close ridiculously early, but the radio programmes are great and Giants is really quite enjoyable. I’ll call it even.

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