Music

Forget (Baby)shambolic tales of charlie, model chicks and chokey or of industrial doses of ‘prang’ done with kids’ TV presenters –  such shenanigans have been going on since the world went electric and are well sanctioned. No, if you want properly edgy, off-the-wall talent that operates outside of rock ’n’ roll’s expectation, then you must look to the new mavericks. Bands such as The Horrors, Pete And The Pirates and Paul The Girl have little in common musically, but they share a spirited muse and a cast-iron commitment to doing their own thing, their way. Latest off the bonkers blocks are five-piece The Mules, who run a riot of different stylistic flags – skiffle, vaudeville, blues, lounge and country – up the post-punk flagpole.

Their debut LP is as exhilarating and inexplicably comical as it is bewildering. Here, Talking Heads’ nervy white funk rubs shoulders with Roy Orbison’s balladry, the cabaret of Kurt Weill and Angelo Badalamenti’s moody lounge, courtesy of rolling, barrel-house piano, sawing violin, needling guitar, synthesized noise, rickety drums and yelping vocals that express all manner of panic and paranoia. ‘Save Your Face’ is a clattering triumph of carefully managed mayhem, which, if things get rough, might help save your day.