Heartworm
Sounding like Echo and the Bunnymen fronted by Nick Cave (with a few of Joy Division's grayer shades thrown in), Whipping Boy play with their guts and their hearts, and you're riveted until the last track ends (which is with a strange, eerie little bonus about paranoid schizophrenia). This is an Irish band that doesn't want to be U2, The Undertones, or even The Boomtown Rats (although, on "When We Were Young" they manage to sound remarkably like The Pogues all dressed in black). The guitars stutter and swirl, going from smooth to spiky, while the rhythm section thunders away underneath; singer Fearghla McKee leads you like a pied piper over the hills and far away to a place where it's always dusk, the streets are empty, and the music of Whipping Boy is playing on the edge of your mind, just out of reach.--Chris Nickson