Nena

Dublin-based three-piece The CrayonZ are the latest act to forget about the big record deal and go for the DIY approach on their debut album. The result may lack the frills that major label megabucks can afford, but Nena is chock-full of some of the most insistent garage rock songs this country has ever produced.
‘Bringing The Conversation Down’, one of the best singles of last year, still sounds as magnificent as it did on first listen. Big, brooding verses give way to one of the catchiest choruses never to make its way onto daytime radio playlists. The good news is it wasn’t a once-off. ‘Overthrow Your Operator’ and ‘Promised’ are similarly endowed with a mixture of dark mood and soaring melody, but one could argue that it’s when they go for the pop jugular that The CrayonZ unearth pure gold.
Frontman Gerard Handrick writes guitar pop songs like nobody else, and tracks like ‘This Time Around’, ‘Anything That Can Fly’ and ‘One Town’ display an inherent and natural catchiness that is impossible to contrive. I defy anybody to listen to the opening bass riff of ‘Suffer’ without involuntarily tapping their toes.
I really hope that Nena brings The CrayonZ all the A&R attention and contract offers that their music deserves. With a bigger budget and a bit of belief behind them, they could develop into something very special indeed.