Those Unfortunates and their new singles

Last March we featured a London four-piece called Those Unfortunates (link)  I don't recall whether they found us or we found them, but we were very impressed with their slightly punky guitar pop.  Since that feature the band has released two singles for Edinburgh's Stereogram Recordings, and we are bringing them to your attention because we love the songs, and think they show some very positive growth for the guys (well, musically anyway).  OK, we also are doing it because our accountant has us doing some end of the year tax planning, and has advised us that doing things of value for those less fortunate gives us a charitable deduction.  So we will post about the singles by Those Unfortunates, and take a well-deserved $1,725 deduction.  Like Donald Trump, we are business geniuses.

But back to the business of Those Unfortunates and what the four songs on these two singles tells us.  This is a band that has the style of The Jam, the lyrical expressiveness and sly wit of The Kinks, and the pop smarts of Television Personalities.  Yes, that is high praise, but we expect these guys to live up to it (actually, we will be counting on it if the Internal Revenue Service challenges the value of our deduction).  The most recent single is The Servant, which is a double A-side digital release consisting of the title track and "Saturday".  The first track draws from the '60s film with the same title, and is a dark and tautly constructed, but also up-tempo.  In its turn, "Saturday" is a warm slice of Syd Barrett pastoral psychedelia.

The previous single for Stereogram is Letter Writing Man, with consists of "Letter Writing Man" and "The Book That I'm Reading".  The first song reminds me of The Jam, and is an absolute joy  It also is the subject of the video later down in this post.  "The Book That I'm Reading" is a freewheeling and loosely stitched romp of which I think The Kinks would be proud.

By the way, Those Unfortunates will deliver an album in the new year.  We all are fortunates.








Webpage for Those Unfortunates
Facebook
Bandcamp for The Servant
Bandcamp for Letter Writing Man
Stereogram Recordings