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One Inch Badge presents:

VERONICA FALLS

The very best type of pop music is the kind that mixes sweetness and light with dissonance and darkness, the sort which injects a perfectly addictive harmony with something sadder, stranger. Think of the gloomy melodrama of “Tell Laura I Love Her”, which kickstarted the “teenage tragedy song” craze in the 60’s, the bleak farewell of “Seasons In the Sun” in the 70’s, even The Smiths’ “Girlfriend in a Coma” in the 80’s – all meltingly beautiful melodies with something considerably darker lurking at its heart; the black cloud on a summer’s day; the bruise on a perfect face.

It is a long and storied lineage, and one which London four-piece Veronica Falls are quite happy fitting into. “We love bands like Beat Happening, Velvet Underground, Galaxie 500 and Felt, but we also love over-emotionalism”, says drummer Patrick Doyle. “We all originally bonded over the sinister sides to love songs from the 50’s and 60’s”.

Welcome to the slanted and enchanted world of Veronica Falls, where serendipity, subversion, providence, and a shared love for Roky Erickson’s worldview all have a crucial part to play.

It is this lucky streak which also saw them being snapped up by Mike Sniper, the head of revered New York label Captured Tracks, a scant 10 minutes after they put their MySpace page up. “He got in touch with us so we thought why not”, Hoare recalls. “We liked a few bands on his label so that helped too”. Doyle agrees: “It felt like a natural home for our first single”. The single in question, “Found Love In a Graveyard”, is a singalong slice of deliciously morbid pop, the breezy harmonies and chant-along choruses slyly belying the off-kilter undercurrent of falling in love with a ghost, and neatly set the tone for what was to follow – instantly addictive pop songs streaked with shades of grey.

With their debut album, Veronica Falls have crafted a brilliantly concise, superbly concentrated hit of spiky, marvellously contagious indie pop with a twist – these are songs which will lodge themselves in your head as well as your heart, with style and attitude to burn. Not that the band are content to rest on their laurels – they’re already starting work on a second album, which they say has them more excited than anything else right now. If it is anything like this album, we have a lot of reason to get excited as well.

+ Novella

+ Peace

13th March 2012

at The Haunt, Brighton

7.50gbp adv // 7:00pm

TICKETS: http://www.seetickets.com/Event/VERONICA-FALLS/The-Haunt/606970 // http://www.wegottickets.com/event/146828 // http://www.ticketweb.co.uk // Resident Music (01273 606312) // Rounder Records (01273 325440)

OTHER UP-COMING SHOWS FROM OIB:

7th December: Iceage @ Green Door Store, Brighton

22nd December: Krampus is Coming Volume 3 LAUNCH PARTY @ Green Door Store, Brighton

17th January: The Xcerts @ The Haunt, Brighton

23rd - 28th January: Sea Monsters 2 @ The Prince Albert, Brighton

3rd February: Man Overboard @ The Hydrant, Brighton

16th February: Grouplove @ The Haunt, Brighton

20th February: Kurt Vile @ The Haunt, Brighton

29th February: The War On Drugs @ Concorde 2, Brighton

3rd March: Allo Darlin' @ The Haunt, Brighton

3rd March: Earth + Mount Eerie @ Arnolfini, Bristol

9th March: Future Islands @ The Haunt, Brighton

12th March: Earth + Mount Eerie @ The Haunt, Brighton

12th April: Pelican @ The Haunt, Brighton

13th April: Pelican @ The Cooler, Bristol

14th April: Ancient Vvisdom @ Green Door Store, Brighton

25th May: Of Mice and Men @ The Haunt, Brighton