June is in the water.

I often feel like I've missed the boat on a lot of bands, occasionally it's missing the boat by a few seconds, just in time to watch it sail into the distant whilst I stand on the shore and lament being a little too slow. Other times, (and this is far more often the case) and to labour the metaphor a little more, I'm so slow that the boat has been around the world a few times; retiring from service before I've even heard that it was sailing.

This last happened to me with The Passmore Sisters. I was stumbling wide eyed around the world wide web one slow morning last christmas when I decided to take a look at Takethepills, a fantastic, fantastic blog. Taking a quick look through the archives, I stumbled across this entry and was suitably intrigued to find out more, so I downloaded the album to give it a listen. I'm glad I did because it's a terrific record. They've got that sort of mid 80's jangle that belonged to a whole bunch of bands from the same period, but if that was all there was to them, I wouldn't have been that bothered; there's more depth than that. The lyrics are strong, a piece in point is 'June In The Water' a song that belies it's poppy sensibilities by being about pushing someone in the water and watching them drown. Whether it's intentional or not is never fully clear (the target of the pushing laughs as she falls in), it's just how the song manages to be so uplifting whilst bleak that makes it so special. They were political too, see 'Red Star, Blue Heart' which sounds quite a bit like The Housemartins, with (dare I say it) a slight touch of Morrissey around the chorus vocal.

Beyond that album I don't really now much about them, I know they were from Bradford, that they've often been compared (as I just did) with The Housemartins. Whilst writing this I've just been reading a piece about them on Foxdude Records which sums them up a lot more succintly then I just have.

Anyway, if that slightly poor description hasn't put you off, you can download the album from the Takethepills link I mentioned earlier, or if that isn't your thing then Last FM has a fair few recordings or even better if you do want to download the album but fear ripping off the band then it's available for FREE download through The Passmore Sisters myspace, which is HERE.

So that would be the end of a slightly pointless wallow in the well of nostalgia if it wasn't for the fact that the other day I was googling The Passmore Sisters, and discovered that the members of the band now record under the name of Fever Hut. I was so pleased not only to find that they were still recording, but more importantly that they still sound great. I like it when bands reform and can still perform brilliantly (see Friends and Mighty Mighty from this years Indietracks) but it's somehow even nicer to find that a band can do something new and still sound great. I'm not the only one who thinks so either. They did a single for Cloudberry at one point (052).

According to their Myspace (give them a listen it's worth your time) it seems that they've already released an album and have another one coming, so I've not quite arrived right at the beginning, but this time I'm going to make sure I'm on the deck looking back at the harbour and not the other way around.