Back in the good old of days of 1990, Color Dream games released Menace Beach for the then popular NES games console from Nintendo. Imagine skateboarding through a side-scrolling 8-bit world filled with balloons, clowns and disgruntled dockworkers in search of your cute pixilated girlfriend Bunny. It’s from this slightly surreal, esoteric world that this Leeds indie rock revolving cast of local luminaries, headed by Ryan Needham and Liza Violet, draw their name. It’s reference acts as the perfect backdrop to their 90s American underground and pre-Brit Pop indie; colourful, energetic, pop and always surprising.

After the their EP ‘Lowtalker’ in early 2014, British indie label Memphis Industries snapped MB up again, but this time with the band’s debut album in mind. It comes in the shape of ‘Ratworld’, a thirteen song assault and journey through a psyche tinged wonderland, documenting moving away and waving goodbye to the fractured rubble of an unhappy lifestyle. On the title, Ryan says “We’ve created our own grubby little Ratworld to inhabit. Everything is better when it’s a bit grubby and broken”. It’s that dreamy sensation of taking comfort in chaos, looking around at the perfect mess you’ve created and feeling deeply content as it’s yours and no one else’s.

Although Ryan and Liza are the creative duo from which the wellspring of inspiration pours out from, they’re now joined by Matt Spalding, Nestor Matthews and Matthew ‘MJ’ Johnson. As everyone’s favourite Leeds based producer, MJ sits behind the desk and has been moulding the sound in his Suburban Home studios since the start.

Opener ‘Come On Give Up’ recalls moments of Pavement’s ‘Terror Twilight’ but then slams home a bittersweat Wavves-esque boy/girl melody in the soaring chorus. Bratty ‘Lowtalkin’ lurches forward, sweat drenched and punchdrunk against a squealing driving darkness.

‘Ratworld’ Tracklisting

01 Come On Give Up
02 Elastic
03 Drop Outs
04 Lowtalkin
05 Blue Eye
06 Dig It Up
07 Tennis Court
08 Ratworld
09 Tastes Like Medicine
10 Pick Out The Pieces
11 Infinite Donut
12 Fortune Teller

UK Tour Dates

10/11 Middlesborough, UK @ Twisterella at Westgarth Social
10/23 Sheffield, UK @ Bungalow and Bears
10/24 Birmingham, UK @ All Years Leaving at Hare and Hounds
10/25 Bristol, UK @ Simple Things Festival
10/31 Manchester, UK @ Nightmare on Oldham Street at Gullivers
11/01 London, UK @ DIY all-dayer at The Laundry
11/21 Manchester, UK @ Gorilla *
11/22 Glasgow, UK @ Stereo *
11/24 Brighton, UK @ The Haunt *
11/25 Birmingham, UK @ Library, The Insitute *
11/26 Bristol, UK @ The Fleece *
11/28 London, UK @ Heaven *
* with Pulled Apart By Horses