Yes, friends, it is time to start thinking about the bands of ‘09

It comes around so fast, that hinge between the end of one year and the start of the next. I know, you probably don’t want to be reminded of that on this November morning, but those of us who toil in the deadline business know that that time is just around the corner.

Inevitably, you spend the end of the old year looking back and the start of the new year looking forward. We wait for the BBC Sound Of 2009 poll to try to inform us who we might be getting excited about. And we also look back at the BBC Sound of 2008 poll to see where it all went horribly wrong. Joe Lean and the Jing Jang Jong, anyone? Nope, me neither.

A safe prediction for 2009 is that there will probably be a hot band from the United States for every single day of the year. Lets call it the Obama effect. That seems to have been how it worked out in 2008 and I don’t really think next year is going to be any different. No Joe Lean and his Jing Jang Jongs there. Well, there probably is, but we do our best to ignore them. We’d also ignore them if they were Swedish, Polish or Mexican. No bias here when it comes to ignoring the Jing Jang Jongs of the world. Equal lack of opportunities for all Jing Jang Jongs.

Anyway, one of the bands we think will feature on your love list for 2009 are Hockey.

They are four scruffy young dudes hailing from Portland, Oregon, Hockey making music which sounds so damn obvious that you wonder why no-one bothered with this before. “Too Fake” starts out like LCD Soundsystem busting a move under a dusty glitterball before the guitars are plugged in and it hits another kind of momentum entirely. Still funky, still sleazy, still big bananas. But different. The lyrics are wordy and smart and gritty, the work of someone who knows that literarate tunes are never a turn off for girls or boys who like girls. The album is called “Mind Chaos” and, now that CD Baby have decided to take my money, I know it’s also full of similar infectious soundtracks and songs to feed your head with.

Get into the “Too Fake” groove here.