Azure Glow

It's the start of this decade and four very young musicians from Manchester form a band. They call it Kid Conspiracy but their music is influenced not by Radiohead as you'd expect from their name or Factory or Oasis given their city of origin.
They look at the fast and hard emo-core scene from America in fact. I mean, true crap like My Chemical Romance is defined "emo", but they had nothing to do with that emo, luckily they sounded more like a grunge band jamming with the likes of The Get Up Kids. Still not my cup of tea, though.
Debut release December Falls is a good record in its own genre, anyway, and already shows signs that this band might evolve into something far more important. This Fine Day and Born are nice songs with interesting melodies and you know you can expect more from (l-r on the pic above) James Alker's guitar, Simon Barker's bass, J.P. Cooper's soulful vocals and Lee More's drums.

They just need to get bored by emo and find the right inspiration for a new direction, and they apparently find it in the more introspective, romantic and intense music of Jeff Buckley and even Pink Floyd.
Even if audience, press and labels were getting excited about Kid Conpiracy, they decide to change name and genre and become Azure Glow. It's 2005 and they self-release their self-titled debut EP, which starts with The Hours Go Faster and you know from the first minute this band has finally evolved into something special, there's an unbelievable rhythm section and the guitar, more delicate and emotional, immediately grabs your heart. JP's vocals have even improved.
The music doesn't follow any defined genre anymore, there are moments when you still hear the influence of American rock, but others when you'd think they have discovered The Durutti Column or The Smiths (or U2 and Coldplay sometimes), but the truth is the music is the result of an immense talent and a perfect combination of elements, and intense songs like Nothing We Can Do and Game Over can only confirm this, with their different approaches in rhythm and sound.
But the masterpiece was released last year in the form of the mini-album Don't Be Afraid, five songs by a band never content with their evolution, continuously looking forward and reaching terrificly high levels which make them one of the best bands of this decade (I honestly think that only a few bands like Gabrielles Wish or Mew have been this good).
As sometimes happens, making a great record makes the band exhausted and can even bring to the band splitting. This is how we've lost such a bright promise. Had they released one album, decently promoted and distributed by a record company, out of the songs of their two recordings, now we'd be talking about the next big thing and you wouldn't need me to tell you how you don't even know yet how you're gonna miss this band... that's because you probably don't know them yet, so you better have a visit at Azure Glow on MySpace where you can hear two songs from the debut EP streaming (you can even download The Hours Go Faster), and a long streaming sample from Don't Be Afraid, you can also find the E Mail address to write them to buy their records and leave comments.
Here, There, Everywhere has already the perfect beginning with a delightful guitar joined wonderfully by bass and drums while JP's amazing voice starts singing "Don't be afraid, 'cos everything's OK", and there's time for the song to evolve into something completely different, a powerful rhythm with great guitar arpeggios and noises. Similarly, You'll Hear Me starts all quiet (with JP's poetic "And if I throw myself from here, will someone catch me and show me peace, and every song I sing into the wishing well, you'll hear me") and grows into a huge emotional monster...
Scarlet is an intense and noisy instrumental, while You Know Me is a delicate gem but Azure Glow's best song ever comes with the closing Can't Hide Away From Everything, Alker's inventive and touching guitar duets perfectly with Barker's bass, Moore designs a fantastic rhythm, JP sings an original and intense tune... here it is, the perfect combination that no longer exists.
Get those records while that E Mail address is still active.