Hear it here first: The Chapman Family

You've seen it before.  The articles exclaim, "Hotly Tipped Band Ready to Take UK by Storm!", only to be followed months to a year later by, "Hotly Tipped UK Band Call it a Day."  That's the case with every buzz band.  They burst onto the scene like a house on fire, and then said fire is quickly extinguished.  But every so often, a band comes along that makes you stand up and take notice.  There's something different about them.  Enter Stockton, UK's The Chapman Family.

Despite some lineup changes since their inception, the underlying basis behind their music remains the same.  They describe themselves as "The Death of Truth," and list their influences as "Politicians, Royalty, War, Cruelty, Injustice, Poverty, Homelessness, Famine, Humanity."  The end result is music that is very raw, very emotional, and most importantly, very REAL,  When singer Kingsley Chapman (they've all adopted the Chapman surname) sings, "I feel like fucking you over...", you feel as if he will actually do it.  While it made very few "Best Of" lists, The Chapman Family's full-length debut, "Burn Your Town", may be the most important album that was released in 2011, as it signals, to this writer at least, a return to form.   In so much of today's music, you can literally hear the script, as if "scream here" was written on the lyric sheet.  You don't get the feeling that anything on their full-length debut, "Burn Your Town", was forced.   It's loud and it's angry, but dammit, it's real.

Many bands today are the product of the pop machine of the last fifteen years.  They write catchy hooks and dress a certain way because the music they grew up with told them that's how it was done.  Bands like The Chapman Family look at that formula, say, "Fuck that," and create something special.  The world needs more bands like The Chapman Family right now.

In their own words: