I’m not sure where the Indy music thing is heading, but if the last few years are anything to go by, it may not be as much to look forward to as we had all hoped. Maybe that’s being a little harsh; yes, there have been numerous fresh up and coming bands over the course of the last five years. Acts like Arcade Fire, Bloc Party and others have thrown new light on a somewhat exhausted genre, but there’s a worrying and repetitive trend even among the albums these have two have produced. Take Arcade for example. Their first album was incredible in many ways – quirky, inventive, and laced together by an organic, old-school feel that allowed them to connect with many more people than the standard Indy / rock outfit ever could. But the band’s second album, Neon Bible, was arguably flawed and did not fare well by comparison. It seemed that the troubles that dogged other bands had finally caught them up, sending them round in a circle of non-progression, so much so that even the CD packaging looked the same.

Indy is a tricky genre simply by its definition, but while there is only so much you can do with some guitars and drums, there has to be more out there. You don’t need to look far back in to history for examples of cutting-edge music: Kate Bush may not exactly fit the Indy mould, but her music blew people away in precisely the same way that many Indy acts from back in the day did. And maybe these bands can learn something from Kate. Or maybe learning isn’t the problem, perhaps its formula: many bands achieve success and, it seems, simply can’t find the energy to shift themselves in a new direction. Because of this the same music gets recycled, and the world of Indy – what should be a dynamic driving-force of any music scene – is getting left behind.