The lineup: Rosie Vanier (vocals, keyboards), Lee Matthews aka Pixie (bass), Sarah Morgan aka Plums (drums).
The background: Rosie and the Goldbug are a techno-ish, keyboard-enhanced indie-rock trio who are known to do a cover version of Duran Duran's Planet Earth live, but there the comparisons with yesterday's New Band of the Day, Ladyhawke, end. They sound more English, for starters - "Kate Bush on crack with Goldfrapp on synths" is how they've been described - and their mix of electronics and rock is more rough and ragged than Ladyhawke's shiny cyber-disco. Plus, Rosie Vanier sings less like a faultless robo-chick than a proper real live girl, the cracks and sobs in her voice betraying her Cornish roots and kooky personality.
But then, you'd probably sound kooky if you had a gregarious mum and part-Native American space-cadet dad who both used to cycle round Europe entertaining passers-by with folk ballads. You might have come out a bit eccentric if you were brought up on Bodmin Moor on a plot of land with no electricity, no heat, no TV, just a piano that your weird parents forced you to play and your only entertainment growing up was fiddling with the shiny red metallic paper at primary school. So much for Vanier's background. These days, having studied "pretentious jazz modes" at Roehampton University, she's in a band with Pixie, a son of hippie-surfer parents who spent his childhood in a beachside caravan, and Plums, a lesbian drummer who had a stint in a Japanese drumming ensemble and tends to flail about onstage like a transsexual Keith Moon.
Actually, despite all these spicy ingredients, Rosie and the Goldbug - the "Goldbug" bit of their name is courtesy of an Edgar Allan Poe story - aren't as tasty as they sound. They're certainly not as weird, or unhinged, as you'd expect. You've Changed suggests an over-fondness for La Bush's Hounds of Love. Heartbreak is budget electro-pop with pounding piano and a rickety beat, "about Plums when she came out about being a lezzer", according to Vanier. War of the Roses (Because You Said So) is a (Transvision) vamp through the Blondie catalogue. And Lover, the lead-off track on their debut single - although produced by Jim Eliot, one half of Kish Mauve, the duo behind Kylie's 2 Hearts comeback - isn't quite as pristine and perfect as you wish it was. The songs leave you feeling more deflated than elated.
The buzz: "Vanier's voice moves effortlessly from seductive whispers to banshee wails, leaving you wondering if you have stumbled into a stage show of Cats on acid."
The truth: RATG may share an acronym with Rage Against the Machine, but you won't get insurrectionary thrills here.
Most likely to: Make Wendy James wonder where she went wrong.
Least likely to: Make you feel mysterious and macabre.
What to buy: The War of the Roses EP is released by Lover on July 14.
File next to: Kate Bush, Ladyhawke, the Heartthrobs, Blondie.
Links: www.rosieandthegoldbug.com, www.myspace.com/rosieandthegoldbug
Tomorrow's new band: Das Pop.
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