Oxford's Curfew reviews On a Friday on stage and on tape

Curfew, the free Oxford music monthly that started in March, reviews a two-song demo by On a Friday in its November issue, and the reviewer calls them his favourite local band of the moment. The tape has “What Is That You Say?” and “Stop Whispering”, and he finds it highly impressive, if a bit old now.

He marvels at how Thom Yorke stays in control as he leaps between low notes and high ones, and he likes a band that make proper use of a backing singer. “What Is That You Say?” is, for him, what commercial indie guitar music should be. “Stop Whispering” falls apart on purpose halfway through until a scream brings it rushing back, with a strange organ sound fighting a guitar straight out of the Velvet Underground. The band are due in the studio this month with Slowdive's producer, and until the results arrive he tells readers to go and see them live.

It is the paper's second go at On a Friday this autumn. In the September issue Ronan Munro, who edits Curfew, reviewed them at a well-filled Jericho Tavern. The first couple of songs sounded too much like Manchester for him, and then the drums, bass and a little keyboard settled into an indie-dance groove, country and western at times, though nearer R.E.M. than Kenny Rogers. He spent the set trying to place who Yorke reminded him of, and worked it out the next day. It was Kirk Brandon of Spear of Destiny, in the way Yorke stretches every syllable until it is nearly a howl, at odds with the band behind him.

With a buzz already about them and a good word from The Candyskins, Munro expected the major labels to come looking soon. He signed off by asking whether Colin Greenwood, on bass, looks like Christopher Walken in The Deer Hunter, and what was going on with the subliminal backing vocals.