Awesome New British Bands

Two music styles that have become increasingly popular in England over the past year or two are:

• Angular, melodic, guitar driven post-punk rock, and
  

• British Anti-Folk.

The first of these two was established by bands like Franz Ferdinand and Bloc Party in 2004 and 2005, and has since been enhanced and re-defined by folks like Klaxons and Meet Me In St. Louis, among others. Two bands new to this genre are Elle Milano and Johnny Foreigner, both of which dropped their debut albums this year.

Download: Elle Milano - Acres of Dead Space Cadets (2008)

Elle Milano is a three-piece that incorporates mathy sounding stop and start structures into their songs while still managing to sound extremely catchy and awesome. This is very impressive, especially for having a girl bassist.

The second band is Johnny Foreigner, who approach the style with a more straight-forward, guitar driven style. Their guitarist has some ridiculously sweet riffs, especially on "Our Bipolar Friends" and "Hennings Favorite."

Download: Johnny Foreigner - Waited Up Til It Was Light (2008)

There's not quite as much to say about the Anti-Folk genre, since it's pretty self-explanatory. Mainly acoustic, soft folk music that slightly goes against its traditional roots and at times even mocks itself. This band, Noah and the Whale, is really awesome.

Download: Noah & The Whale - Peaceful, The World Lays Me Down (2008)

The next example of Anti-Folk is Lightspeed Champion, the new project of Dev Hynes, who used to play guitar in the electronic dance rock band Test Icicles. He recorded it at Saddle Creek studios in Omaha, Nebraska with members of Tilly & The Wall and Emmy the Great on vocals.

Download: Lightspeed Champion - Falling Off The Lavender Bridge (2008)