Bearsuit - 'Foxy Boxer'

Now these buggers have been on my mind this weekend because I saw them on Friday night. The venue, by the way, upstairs at a pub called The Enterprise, was pretty much the shabbiest I've ever seen. And I've now put in some 20 years of watching unpopular bands in obscure holes. The Enterprise, hard by Chalk Falm tube, is a pub that I had twice before entered, both times having walked out without taking a drink aghast in horror at the clientele. Truly, I love Bearsuit to have braved this a third time, including on this occasion sampling red wine visibly concocted by mixing the dregs of several different bottles.

Each time I see Bearsuit - and I think to my shame this was only the fourth - it occurs to me that they must be one of my favourite bands. And then between times I rather forget about them, which means I must be a bad person. They're one of those bands - see also the very different Broken Family Band - who make more sense live than on record. I realised on Friday that they are at heart a shouty noise band who like nothing more than making a racket. But that's not all they are. They like edges, this lot, both sharp and serrated, but they like melody and choruses and boy-girl singalongs too. They prefer it best when all these things happen at once. And when songs stop and start and begin again suddenly and make unexpected gear changes. And when they can shoehorn in trumpets and flutes at any opportunity, as they did on Friday. Melt-Banana meets Talulah Gosh, perhaps? Live, they always appear to be having a great time themselves, even if sometimes they can't remember how to begin or indeed play a particular song, and I always love this. I reckon, particularly on a Friday night after a week's senseless toil, I've got more chance of having a good time if the band I'm seeing are too.

It's just that each time I see them there seem to be fewer people there than the time before. I reckon there were 50 of us, if that, paying homage in the Enterprise. And this, alongside climate change, is surely proof that all of us in the developed world are going to hell and probably deserve to do so.

Anyway, new single Foxy Boxer showcases the more melodic, less crunchy side of Bearsuit, despite which it's stranger than 99% of anything that you might hear on, say, idiot indie station XFM, and contains an inexplicable line about having 'hips like mahogany'. This tune is apparently inspired by the sport of 'topless titty boxing', which has so far escaped my consciousness, but surely merits a quick google as soon as I've finished this. Hey, if we need a demonstration sport for the 2012 East London Olympics, we've surely found it? Why don't you buy the record, which comes with a badge - I often consider buying only records that either come with a badge or are on coloured vinyl, as I reckon the strike rate would be high, and this offers both - or even, you know, pay for a download? They deserve your money.