The Wombats and their unofficial fourth memberThe wackiest and most lovable Liverpudlians to transport quirky powerpop across the Mersey since John, Paul, George, and Ringo first headed to Hamburg, the Wombats charmed all of Britain and beyond when they first reared their messily moptopped heads back in 2006. Despite starting off as some sort of madcap joke band when they first formed at Paul McCartney's Liverpool Institute of Performing Arts (at their infamously shambolic early gigs, they wore jesters' hats, did between-song stand-up and recited random Facts Of The Day, and basically "tried to make people uncomfortable"), they soon realized they could craft some seriously stellar indie pop. Songs like the surprisingly upbeat "Let's Dance To Joy Division," Jude Law-namechecking "Kill The Director," and broodingly post-punky "Moving To New York" were some of the best and brightest U.K. singles of the year, retaining all of the Wombats' batty British humor and pairing it with superb songwriting.
The Wombats (Matthew Murphy, Dan Haggis, and Norwegian transplant Tord Øverland-Knudsen) took way too long to spread their wings after releasing their 2007 full-length debut, The Wombats Proudly Present: A Guide To Love, Loss & Desperation; the next we heard from them was just a teaser EP in 2009. But thankfully, they've since triumphantly returned with their long-awaited, equally long-windedly titled sophomore set, The Wombats Proudly Present: This Modern Glitch. The Wombats recently made the flight across the Atlantic to perform at Filter magazine's Culture Collide festival, and while they were in town, they swung by Yahoo! Music HQ to entertain us with an acoustic lunchtime set of songs from both of their albums.
Release the 'Bats! And check out their fun, piñata-assisted performances below.