Music: Ned’s Atomic Dustbin

When I was about 13-14, and first got into music, I used to look at groups from the 70s and 80s reforming and think it was all a rather sad and pathetic attempt to relive a time that had passed. Of course, now I’m nearly 30 myself, I completely understand why they do it, and support it fully – with a due feeling of embarrassment, of course, but nonetheless…

Ned’s Atomic Dustbin may not have been a band that changed the world as a whole, but for whatever reasons, they changed my world quite significantly when I was a teenager. Three or four years ago, they played a couple of reunion gigs at Christmas. Eldan and I went along, and I was rather nervous – had they been awful, they would have destroyed the image of them left over from my childhood. Fortunately, jumping up and down in a baggy T-shirt never felt so good and I instantly forgave myself for being nostalgic.

The Christmas gig became a regular occurrence. When Jon and I went in December 2004, we got a bit of a surprise when they started playing a song we didn’t know. Call me extremely sad, but I know every song they ever released, and several they didn’t, so I was a bit confused, but it turned out that yes, they had written a couple of new songs, which sounded pretty good, as far as you can ever tell at a gig.

Finally, a couple of weeks ago, they released these songs, and thanks to the wonders of modern technology it only took about 3 hours to download them last weekend on my awful phone line.

And I’m a happy bunny. Nothing here that is likely to change the face of rock music, but they’re a worthy addition to the Ned’s canon. Of course, only about 3 other people I know might feel the same, but I reckon that if you don’t care about the Ned’s you are clearly a James-Blunt-loving, Mariah-Carey-worshipping lunatic, and there’s no hope for you anyway. So go out and buy 10 copies of it tomorrow.