Insect Guide - dark days and nights

Leeds trio Insect Guide produce a lovely dark shoegazey and noisy pop on this their second album. It has feedback noise, cool female vocals (Su Sutton is one of my favourite singers right now) and bags of atmosphere. Despite the dark noise mayhem there is also a definite pop sensibility and some great hooks, on the title track especially.

Wall-of-sound indie guitar pop with a cool style and attitude. I just know that if i was in a band i would want it to be Insect Guide. They should be massive worldwide, they are in my heart already.

• Dark Days & Nights (Amazon)

MV : "David Hero" by Insect Guide

Great band!

Yoko Tsuno 4 : Daughter Of The Wind

This series gets better and better, the first 2 were admittedly a bit odd and hard to get into but Book 4 really builds on the wonderful mystery of #3 to give us a terrific adventure involving typhoons, international intrigue and hi-tech toys that look like they came straight out of a Gerry Anderson show.

What i like about these Yoko Tsuno stories is that the author isn't afraid to give the character a past, and some background story which really adds to the appeal of the character. Otherwise she would be just a pretty geek who gets involved with sci-fi adventures for some random reason. This story involves her family and the sort of scientific work they are involved in and as well as that we discover her childhood mentor.

Its a well paced and intriguing story and even has some ninjas in it. Any story with ninjas in is a win of course. If the third book reminded me a bit of a Famous Five or Scooby Doo mystery then this one is more like a Gerry Anderson or Japanese anime. Both work really well with a character like Yoko. The artwork too is truly superb. Highly recommended.

• Cinebook page
• Yoko Tsuno Vol. 4: Daughter of the Wind (Amazon)

MV : "Sugar coated" by The Nova Saints

Hard edged noise pop.

Lucky Luke 3 : Dalton City

The third book in Cinebook's sequence of Lucky Luke introduces the Daltons, a gang of desperate men who are luckily pretty stupid too. The Daltons escape from jail and set up their own outlaw town. In steps Lucky Luke, the man who shoots faster than his shadow, to bring them to justice.

Like the first 2 books this is a very enjoyable read with plenty of the humour those familiar with some of Goscinny's other works may find familiar. There is so much to enjoy here such as Luke's horse and its sarcastic quips, the Daltons all looking the same except for being different sizes and the rubbish telegraph operator. Its a great comedy western, it even has an overworked and overeager undertaker.

What i really enjoy about these stories is that even though Luke is a gunman without peer he seldom relies on his gunslinging to catch the bad guys rather using his cunning and trickery to enshare the bad guys in an intricate plan, though the storieswould be a lot shorter of course if he did!

Morris' artwork is fine though one criticism is that it suffers from "lazy colouring" with whole chunks of the same frame in the same colour though this was common in older comic strips (early Asterix for example). Its only a minor point though, this is a great read.

• Cinebook
• A Lucky Luke Adventure - Dalton City (Amazon)