Wednesday 31 October 2012

Battle Of The Bands: Round 8

It's a week and a day later than first billed, but here's the round-up of Round 8.  Going into this latest musical melee, it's been level pegging with 3 wins apiece ever since that opening round draw.  Last time out, Neil (the nemesis) from Scottish Fiction drew the series level with some help from the crème de la Croy... Campfires In Winter, who toyed with my Edinburgh trio Toy Machene.  The ball's back in my court this time, and I've got an Aberdonian ace up my sleeve...

...for joining Team Kowalskiy this round is the mighty IndianRedLopez.   Another favourite around these parts, and some impressive stats to boot!  I went into our latest bout confident I'd regain the lead once again.  Unbeknownst to me, I was doing battle with another favourite of mine... the prolific Lovers Turn To Monsters a.k.a. Kyle Wood. 

Before I give a blow-by-blow account of what happened, here's a quick recap of the rules for those who, after 8 rounds, still don't have a clue what's going on.  You can read them in full over here.  This round, it's my turn to pick the three attributes we're playing with.  For each of the three, the person with the highest value gets one point, with both getting a half-point in the event of a draw.  Losers... don't get a thing!   I banked on my guys' Band Name Scrabble Score (they have a Z!),  their Twitter Follow Ratio (anything bigger than 1 is impressive in my book), and I also played the age card and went for Average Age.  Disclaimer time... all stats were correct at the time of battle.

Right, here's the all-important stats.  Ding ding, Round 8...


Oh yasss!  That 'Z' came in very, very handy as I took a 1-0 lead after the first attribute.  Next up, was the Twitter factor, and my boys narrowly pipped it... and I mean narrowly!  A 5-second purge of who he follows and Kyle would have levelled the round.  But, as it stood, Team Kowalskiy took an insurmountable 2-0 lead.  I didn't even have to play the age card, but I thought it best to give you plenty of time to look for five 30th birthday presents for my boys.  That completed a Round 8 whitewash, and edged me out in front AGAIN in the series. 

Once again, he who is in charge of the attributes, wins!  I've got 2 weeks to find a band to help me buck that trend in Round 9. 

As much as I enjoy these little triumphs in this yo-yoing duel, it's all about the music!  So I'll start off the plugging with the victors IndianRedLopez.   Their debut album Empty Your Lungs And Breathe was undoubtedly one of last year's highlights, and if their new track Break Us Both is anything to go by, the follow-up may just be better still! You can watch the video for it here, or listen to it below... and no doubt they'll be playing it at The Arches in Glasgow on the 16th November (get tickets here). They then head down to London for two nights at Surya (21st) and Proud Camden (22nd).



And now, onto the man who's very much more of a lover than a fighter, it's Lovers Turn To Monsters.  It's difficult to know what to plug since Kyle always seems to have something new out!  In August he released his own take on Withered Hand's entire Good News album, and good it is too.  You can get that here.  But as it's his latest offering, and 'cos it's Halloween, I'll pop up a track from This Horror Movie is a Metaphor for Puberty... which you can pay-what-you-want for here.


So that's it for another fortnight! Until then, I'll quietly bask in my one point lead in the series...

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