The Ruling Class

Who: The Ruling Class

Hail From: London, England

Label: Shelflife Records

Active from: 2005ish to current

Sounds like: Straight up The Stone Roses

We all feel a little cheated with the fact that The Stone Roses only released 2 albums between a 5 year label battle. Well, reincarnation through inspiration. Swedish guitarist Tomas Kubowicz loved the whole Manchester Brit Pop movement and set out writing and singing what he loved. Evolving as all projects do he now leaves the vocals to Jonathan Sutcliffe and concentrates on guitars and writing. Take yourself back to 1989 and listen up.

The Ruling Class - Flowers

The Ruling Class - Sleeping Beauty

We Were Promised Jetpacks

Who: We Were Promised Jetpacks

Hail From: Eidenburgh, Scotland

Label: Fat Cat Records

Active from: 2003 to current

Sounds like: Indie guitar pop, sorta like label mates Frightened Rabbit (but to be that is prob cuz they both have Scottish accents)


Like most I was 1st drawn to check out this band just because of the band name. Very catchy (but not cheesy) fun indie guitar pop with accents (and lets face it, we Americans are suckers for singers with accents). The story goes that they were discovered by their label through label mates Frightend Rabbiet's Myspace page.


We Were Promised Jetpacks - It's Thunder And It's Lightning


We Were Promised Jetpacks - Ships with Holes Will Sink

Polly Scattergood

Who: Polly Scattergood

Hail From: Essex, England

Active from: 2005 to current

Sounds like: Tori Amos or Kate Bush but more depressing, self-deprecating and quirky

Polly Scattergood and a great voice and her music is slightly haunting. Listening to the album you may think sister needs to see a therapist. She spends the whole album beating herself up for her shortcomings and failures. However, many of us have then in that place in our lives. She doesn’t come off whiny and in some very odd way she is slightly empowering at times. It is hard to explain, but it is definitely worth checking out. On a side note: Her album cover reminds me of Mary Hopkins for some reason.

Polly Scattergood – I Hate the way (had to go the youtube route, couldn’t find any mp3s on line. Just audio and sill picture of album cover



Polly Scattergood – Please Don’t Touch

God Help The Girl

Who: God Help The Girl

Hail From: Glasgow, Scotland

Label: Rough Trade, Matador

Active from: 2008 to current

Sounds like: 60’s Female pop folk with underlying bits of show tune

God Help the Girl is a Side Project of Stuart Murdoch of Belle and Sebastian. His plan was to write the sound track to a coming of age story of a young woman, record the album and then film the movie. I could go on, but Paste Magazine has a good story on the whole shebang here.

Check it out!

God Help The Girl - Funny Little Frog

God Help The Girl - If You Could Speak