ORLANDO London King's Cross Splash Club
Movements,as anyone who's ever eaten a curry in Kenya will tell you,can be a terribly messy business.Fortunately for Orlando,however,their particular 'movement' was so spectacularly undersubscribed that no-one has ever heard of it and we can therefore avoid sullying their name with the whole sorry business any further.Result!
Because,against all odds,Orlando really are rather good.Good enough,in fact,to be the sort of pop group that you can describe as 'old-fashioned' without really meaning 'a pile of old retro arse'. Which means low-rent,not-very-good-looking-at-all-actually 'glamour' (think Soft Cell) colliding with a classically brash 80s pop sensibility (think George Michael before he went 'mature',ie,boring).And when the swish songwriting measures up to the lavish sound- only half the time,sadly,most notably on debut single 'Just For A Second'- they're even nearly as good as obvious inspirations,the Pet Shop Boys.That's nearly.
Indeed,despite the fact there are some boring looking blokes getting in the way at the back,Orlando actually mark the spectacular return of the assumed-defunct 'duo' concept.Black-clad,stick-thin singer Tim has a brilliant white-plastic soul voice,while haughty,blond guitarist,ahem,Dickon flounces around like a man quite rightly less concerned about what he's playing than how he's playing it.
A Marc Almond & Butler for the post-Britpop generation,anyone?
MARK SUTHERLAND