The Zutons

The mainstream success of the Coral on the UK charts in the early years of the twenty-first century resulted in increased exposure for a number of other Liverpool-based bands, most notably the Zutons and the Bandits. The Zutons formed in 2002 when various members of the Liverpool club scene, namely David McCabe (vocals/guitar), Boyan Chowdhury (guitar), Russell Pritchard (bass) and Sean Payne (drums; ex-Stands), decided to launch a new band. The quartet signed to the same label as the Coral, Deltasonic Records, and made their debut in September 2002 with the limited edition "Devil's Deal". A solitary release followed in 2003, "Creepin' An' A Crawlin'", while the band, bolstered by saxophonist Abi Harding, finished work on their debut album with former Lightning Seeds mastermind Ian Broudie. The singles "Pressure Point" and "You Will You Won't" premiered Who Killed " The Zutons, which was released at the start of 2004. Like the other bands on Liverpool's 'Cosmic Scouse" scene, the Zutons draw on disparate and often unrelated musical styles in their quest for an original slant on the basic indie rock blueprint. To this end, their debut opened with a Monkees-style theme tune before progressing haphazardly through soul and funk ("Pressure Point", "Dirty Dancehall"), rock ("Long Time Coming") and Merseybeat ("You Will You Won't"), while finding time to slow thing down for a couple of tracks ("Confusion" and "Not A Lot To Do"). The quintet's self-styled "zombie soul music" elicited admiring words of praise from the UK press, although the band would have been dismayed to find themselves constantly compared to the Coral. The album was nominated for the Mercury Music Prize in July 2004 and went on to sell over 600,000 copies.