The Automatic Biography

And in turn, The Automatic were able to mine a virgin sound, as Rob's pummeling bass wraps itself round Iwan's nuclear, physical drums, Frost and Pennie skate over at speed, creating an urgent, glam hardcore fantasy island of sounds as ambitious, deranged, angry and fun as the sound of the future should be…

Their debut album, recently completed in Liverpool, Cardiff and Lincoln, is the most restless record you'll hear all year. Like valley forefathers the Manic Street Preachers, they adhere to a strict 'no ballads' blueprint. "But then Rob said he's never gonna wear leather trousers," says Pennie, "and you just know he's gonna be up there in leather trousers on the stage of the Millennium Stadium in a few years."

The burnt-on-your-earlobes blast of debut single 'Recover' you know already; but there's a far stranger heart underneath that. A particular favourite, the a-pop-alyptic 'By My Side' was the first song they started together and the last to be finished, while the song that survives as the disco-metal 'That's What She Said' began life as three-and-half verseless, vocal-free minutes of prog pop which tempted their management into investigating the band further because it was "the most arrogant thing we'd ever heard."
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