Keytrack: 'Girls Like Us.'

"Oh Manchester, so much to answer for,” Morrissey famously sang. His native city certainly has weighty cultural lode, steeped in hedonistic nights in the Hacienda and a proud and world famous lineage of musical history. Well, sod all that: PINS sound absolutely nothing like their Madchester forefathers. They are the sound of ripping it up and starting again.
Faith Holgate, Anna Donigan, Lois Macdonald and and Lara Williams sound like just the kind of band you might expect to stumble on, in a line-up in a Brooklyn basement alongside Crystal Stilts and Vivian Girls. The title track throws down the gauntlet. “I think I’ve gone mad, but it was fun,” is repeated as a refrain, over spiky guitars. It is PINS’ calling card and anthem – and it’s terrific, bristling with attitude and mysterious menace.
The PINS girls are heading for Ireland in early December, for shows in Dublin, Limerick, Cork and Galway. If reports from across the water are to be believed, they’re even better live than on record. In the meantime, turn up ‘Velvet Morning’ and ‘Lost Lost Lost’ and savour the future sound of Manchester.