The Automatic

The Welsh quartet brought Hawkins and Pennie together with guitarist James Frost and drummer Iwan Griffiths. Not Accepted Anywhere appeared in 2006, including Recover, Raoul and Monster. Bass, guitar and synthesiser parts created a particularly busy surface, with the rhythm section keeping the songs clear enough for the principal hook to register immediately.

Monster became the defining single, its central question and repeated chorus giving the track an exceptionally recognisable shape. The arrangement is not simply loud throughout. The changing relationship between the main vocal, the responses and the instrumental parts provides much of the movement, making the eventual group refrain feel like the release of pressure already built into the verse.

Pennie left after the first album period, with Paul Mullen joining the band for the next recording chapter. This Is a Fix arrived in 2008, including Steve McQueen. The changed personnel altered the vocal and guitar balance, making the second album more than another attempt to reproduce the precise sound of Monster.

Tear the Signs Down followed in 2010. The sequence is useful to hear as a band changing the internal arrangement of its parts, rather than only as a career measured against one conspicuous hit. The first record's distinctive vocal collision remains its most obvious signature, but the later music reveals a continuing interest in how a direct melody can stay legible inside a forceful, rhythmically active band.