Singles

The Automatic - Recover

Emily Tartanella 21/11/2005

Rating: 4/5

The Automatic are, despite all appearances, not the next Kaiser Chiefs. Ignore the shared label, a shared fashion sense, and a shared need to make girls dance, because The Automatic sound very little like Ricky Wilson and co. Instead “Recover,” their debut single, sounds more like the Manic Street Preachers drowning in a squall of new-wave guitars than the revisionist Britpop so popular today.

If anything The Automatic could be that ancestor of the Kaisers, Parva, with their giddy wails and feedback. Except, of course, that the Automatic are rather good. The song opens with those same 80s keyboards you've heard for the past year, but devolves into a semi-chaotic rush as vocalist Rob Hawkins yelps out “Get up! Recover!” like a Welsh, 18-year-old Isaac Brock.

“Recover” is not “I Predict a Riot.” The Automatic are far too weird, too hyper, and too interesting to ever be the Kaiser Chiefs. Watch this band.