Ignore the drug leaflet/PSA spelling: punctuation’s accidental with the Don’ts & Be Carefuls. Clearly incensed by the work hours they’ve missed due to compulsory Office Orientation training, the DBCs have put out Risk Assessment, a debut EP that’s “a six-song block of accessible yet complex danceable plastique with a grit reminiscent of the Pixies.” The DBCs do a mighty fine job of capturing that band’s early vitriol—“Color TV” even harks back to the zeitgeist of their Surfer Rosa (1988) glory days. And yet there’s an original shimmer to the track; enough guts to lift it from imitator horseplay and let it overtake Big Frank on the water (he and his mind are still swimming in the Caribbean).

The “Color TV” of the title is the thick ear you might get from asking dad for a channel change—only this time, you get to return his “If you don’t like the racing you can piss off up to the park” tied to a wasps’ nest of new wave. The Deep Purple bass line, the kick drum akin to a hatchback from hell, and the feedback guitar line from a bag of walkie-talkies all spearhead one mean batch of weaponry, the voice like graffiti on the side of a launch tube as it pumps off bombs into the desert. ““All your friends, all your friends / Just want to start a scene / Well Mary-Anne will hold her head up high / ‘Cos she’s done this once before / Friends crawled on the floor / All she ever did was save your sorry life,” howls Casey Banker, the rabbit-punch percussion and volleyball hooks echoing fellow youngsters the Drums—but only if they’d been mugged a couple of times first. Regardless of Pixie/Drum yardsticks, “Color TV” comes only mildly dressed in misogyny, and balances the strife with genuine teen believing that might just help save this decade. It’s January. There’s time. Let’s go surfing.

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⊙ :: Keyword Tags: The Don'ts & Be Carefuls

Who wants revenge on meteorology? Well get behind me in the queue. I’ve had it with black ice and all-night foot-freeze; I’ve had it with taping burst pipes together. I’ve also had it with my Christmas binge of UK garage offshoots, and need something warm/drowsy to push me into Buddhism. Thanks to nine days of plummeting mercury I’ve gone arse-over-tit more times than Todd Carty, and envy anyone with access to shirt-friendly climate. Snow here in England is too much like Ecstasy: it drops, it’s beautiful, your head hurts.

These facts considered, Gabriel Sunset is probably my biggest envy right now. Launching himself as Sunset Provision with three mp3s as a starter, Gabriel writes indie guitar songs in the dry high twenties, soothing as pool-water running off your elbows. At first I thought “By Friday I Will Be Gone” was a very, very indirect nod at last week’s Doctor Who finale, but now I’m convinced it’s a well-behaved goodbye note with a wax seal by Ola Podrida. A hazy strum floats over miles of shimmering freeway, bound for somewhere potentially Californian but still as far from the Governator as his Pumping Iron (1977) co-stars. Hums Gabriel: “I’m estranged but not afraid / Hate is what I’ve come accustomed to / So when you shout your silly names / I do feel at home but I know I must be on my way.” And off he goes, head out the window, the wind tousling his hair like the sea breezes will. As a feathery blood relation of “By The Time I Get To Phoenix” you can imagine his ex-partner hearing this, disgusted at the way the song soars with its victory Jew’s Harp outro. “I’ve picked a place and I don’t want to see you there,” coos the tan-man, bound for a naturalist future. She’ll find you. Shut down your Facebook

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⊙ :: Keyword Tags: Acoustic California Chill