My kid brother spends a lot of money on music. He buys maybe a dozen new albums every month. Sometimes more than a dozen, but usually at least a dozen. A dozen is a sort of fair guestimate. This is good for me. I'm married. I have two children. I work a full-time job and don't have much (hell, ANY!) money to really spare. So, periodically, my brother flings a big pile of CDs my way and I get to flick through them like a dismissive God (I pop them into my computer and skip-skip-skip-skip, listening to maybe thirty odd seconds of each song from each album to gather whether or not it's worth my while to dally further). Now. I should say. My brother is about a decade younger than me. He picks up music that is of no interest to me whatsoever. Stuff like Plan B. He picks up stuff that is sort of cool, too, though. Like, last week, he flung a couple of albums by Heat Miser my way. Heat Miser were Elliot Smith's band before Elliot Smith was Elliot Smith, if you follow my drift. The Heat Miser albums are not the best albums in the history of the world, but they're interesting. Worth a listen (if your younger brother has too much disposable income). Most of the CDs my brother sends my way fall into this second category: interesting without being essential. I can rely on my brother to pick up the new stuff so that I can (a) give the new stuff a scant listen and (b) form enough of an opinion as to be able to piss people off if they ask me what I think of the new Snow Patrol / Nouvelle Vague / Ali Farka Toure / Thom Yorke record. Pissing people off is important to me.

Every once in a while, though, he passes something my way which is - to coin a phrase - right up my street.

Now. Before we go any further. You should know that I'm quite shallow. I don't really have favourite albums (at a push I could probably blather on about Jeff Buckley's �Grace� or American Music Club's �Everclear� or The Fall's �Hex Enduction Hour�). My favourite music tends to be whatever is flipping my lid at a certain moment in time. That isn't to say I don't have favourite bands. I do. It's just that I'm a bit of a kid when it comes to music. If I hear something new that floats my boat, I tend to get giddy. A few months ago, I heard Nouvelle Vague covering Dead Kennedys' 'Too Drunk to Fuck'. I loved that. Same goes for old Sam Beam's cover of New Order's 'Love Vigilantes' and The Shins' cover of The Postal Services' 'We Will Become Silhouettes'. For maybe the last three weeks I've been on something of a Sufjan Stevens tip (after my brother put a pile of Sufjan CDs my way). By which I mean to say that I'm sort of faddish and given to juvenile spurts of unfettered enthusiasm that can get kindof annoying if you have to spend any kind of time with me.

So. Enough context. Last week (my brother was dragging me to see Forward Russia, I wasn't sure whether I would like them and - hey! what do you know? I didn't), sitting in a pub, pre-gig, my brother gave me a pile of CDs that he'd picked up in Fopp that afternoon ('I was wandering round,' my brother, the consumate consumer, said, 'and these kindof jumped out at me'). These turned out to be the new album by The Constantines, the new album by Jim Noir, the new album by Hot Chip ... and the new album by a band called Rogue Wave. I didn't really give any of them a proper look (after a couple of years of having big piles of music served up to you on a plate, you get all ... uhm ... dismissive and God-like), just popped them in my bag, said 'Cheers' and had another suck of my pint. It wasn't until the next afternoon that I got round to listening to any of them. I started with The Constantines because I'd read about them already on Pitchfork (Pitchfork is the best music website in the world). The Constantines are alright. Melodic guitar rock. Nothing you haven't heard before. Then I played the new Rogue Wave album (which is called 'Descended like Vultures'). I chose Rogue Wave next because the album artwork is enticing (a pale blue crook-headed bloke in a raincoat is waving with what looks like a red spanner clutched in his hand) and because they are on Sub Pop. (It may be that you are discerning enough to have an opinion on Sub Pop - maybe you'll think, 'Ah, Sub Pop - home to many a fine grunge band back in the day!' It may also be that you are even more discerning than that. It may be that you think, 'Ah! Sub Pop! Home to many a fine band of note such as The Shins or The Innocence Mission!' If you are of that latter caste, perhaps you can understand my placing of the Rogue Wave second.)

'Bird on a Wire', the first song on 'Descended like Vultures', ticked certain boxes (vaguely Shin-like vocals, crunchy, occasionally discordant guitars disturbing churchified acoustic noodles at inappropriate moments) without being in any way revelatory. 'Publish My Love', however (the second track) made me sit right up. It kicks off like an old Ride tune, 'Like a Daydream'. (Ride, I should say at this point, were a terrible, terrible band, but 'Like a Daydream' kicked ass!). 'Publish My Love' - like all great rock'n'roll - is beautiful, dumb, loud, intricate and perfect. By the third track - 'Salesman at the Day of the Parade' which sounds all 'So. Central Rain'-period REM - I was frothing at the mouth. I get like that. It isn't pretty. I played the album through a couple times and then started behaving like Michael Furey at the end of 'The Dead'. If I knew where Rogue Wave lived, if I had an address, I'd go stand in the rain until I had pneumonia. As it was, I opened iTunes to see what else they'd done. I was in luck. There was another album and a bunch of EPs and a single solitary iTunes single called 'Eyes'. Of course I bought them all. And they are all good. I've been boring everyone silly with them all week. It doesn't matter what anyone else is talking about. Rogue Wave, I say. Rogue Wave. They look at me nonplussed: we were talking about the new Superman movie. Yes, yes, yes, I say, but Rogue Wave. What about Rogue Wave? Rogue Wave are not in the new Superman movie?!? So. I've bored everyone I know silly with Rogue Wave. I've been sent to Coventry. But it's fine. I have my iPOD. I can still listen to Rogue Wave. Who needs people, right?

Peter Wild is the co-founder of www.bookmunch.co.uk. He is the editor of a forthcoming series of books for Serpent's Tail, the first two of which � �Perverted by Language: Fiction inspired by The Fall� & �The Empty Page: Fiction inspired by Sonic Youth� - will be published in 2007. His writing and fiction have appeared in NOÖ Journal, Word Riot, SN Review The Big Issue, Nude Magazine, Alt Sounds, City Life, 3AM magazine and Eyeballkid. He lives in Manchester with the wife and two kids. For a selection of Peter�s fiction on the showcase section of this site click here.

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