All out of Loves

The Loves, perhaps the grumpiest band in indiepop, are no more. They played their last gig at the weekend on a stellar bill that included Comet Gain, The Lovely Eggs and Pocketbooks among others, before retiring with their go-go dancers to an office job near you.

Not that they'll give a shit, but I had a very love/hate relationship with The Loves over the past decade. Well, hate is obviously too strong a word, but for everyone great song they'd write, there's be another seemingly written-in-their-sleep one. Shame, then, that they've decided to call it a day when they'd hit something approaching consistency, Brian.

To mark their passing, the band have released a free ep, that you can download from the Fortuna Pop! website for nowt. It's got one original, and last, Loves song on their, and covers by The Velvet Underground, Elton fucking John, Os Mutantes, Daniel Johnston and Jonathan Richman and the Modern Lovers. The original, 'It's... the End of the World' is a hilarious cod-Gospel epic and 'The Loves... Love You Too' is worth downloading just for that.

The Loves, then. More members than The Fall. More tunes than most. And more fun than most pop music over the last ten years. See you later, comrades..