"Sorry," says Darren Ford, Lowgold's singing guitarist, before setting out his agenda. "We like songs. That's what I'm after from a group, a good song. I am very suspicious of any band whose bark is bigger than their bite. If someone sets out a manifesto you start the stopwatch and it's a race to to find out how quickly they can contradict themselves. Write a good song and then we'll worry about it." It seems a fine philosophy if you ask me. Beautifully melodic, terrifically honest, Lowgold won't change
the way you dress, but it should set your soul on fire.

Lowgold - Dan Symons, Miles Willey, Simon Scott and the aforequoted Darren - came into existence back in 1997 when Darren ran into Dan in a pub. "We discovered that Darren wrote some right nice songs," Dan explains, "and that I could play some right nice guitar on top." So they decided to record some of Darren's songs and - on a whim - sent it to Nude Records.

Much to the surprise of both of them, the label got in touch to find out when the band were next playing. This posed a problem - they had songs, they had a demo, they had no band. "So we roped in their old friend Miles on bass (as well as a now departed drummer) and started rehearsing". On their first visit to our practice sessions Nude seemed impressed. On the second visit they signed them. "I'd been on the dole for approximately all my life," Darren says, "so there was no tie to stop me from signing
straight away."

And so the serious writing began. "We're into people who write from the heart" Dan explains, "not the head. We have quite a few areas of dissecting taste but at the very centre is Neil Young, Alex Chilton (Big Star), Bill Janovitz (Buffalo Tom), and people like that". And you can tell. 'Just Backward Of Square' is the a classic album of sad songs that make you feel good.

"We kind of hope the music is timeless" Darren says, "we're not really harking back to the past - sixties comparisons are a bit off - we're just producing the kind of song that you can't date. It's not particularly year 2000, but I think people will be able to listen to our songs in thirty years time - I think they've got that quality that means people can find things new in them. Were aiming for something like the Smiths - a classic band - whenever I listen to their records I always hear something
new".

And we might just still be listening in 2030.