The Automatic: ‘Steve McQueen’

Back in 2006, The Automatic were those sprightly youngsters who cautiously warned us of the approaching monster from hills afar in their catchy sing-along fashion. Mercifully the monster never arrived and we all assumed it was a trick of a light.

Other unforthcoming predictions at the time heralded The Automatic's continuing success on the music scene. However, despite decent festival sets and a couple of follow-up singles, the infectious appeal of ‘Monster’ seemed to have departed them and the sorry fate of one-hit-wonder status seemed assured.

Now, two years later, with this new single, a new album and a new line-up, The Automatically are most definitely back in action. Whilst little has changed in the vocal output of catchy shouty terrace anthems, the change in line-up has noticeably beefed up the guitar sound with the addition of Yourcodenameis:milo frontman Paul Mullen, replacing yelping keyboardist Alex Pennie in a change that few would suggest is not for the better. A trip to LA to record the album with Butch Walker also seems to have added a final layer of polish to a sound that already utilised the dynamics between the band very effectively. Let’s just hope they can keep up the good work with the rest of the album and don’t leave us disappointed again.

Released on 18th August 2008 by B-Unique Records.

Written by Andy Hirst.