The Family Battenberg

The Family Battenberg play The Sunflower Lounge on Tuesday 8 December, with doors opening at 7:00pm. They're a self-produced four-piece garage-rock band from Cardiff who've spent the last few years working their way across the UK's showcase circuit, and this is their Birmingham stop.

They call their sound 'spider rock' — a filthy, fuzzy psychedelic style built on driving Motorik rhythms, rock-and-roll guitar riffs and curious lyrics. It's a description that points to a few things at once: the Motorik beat is that steady, hypnotic 4/4 pulse associated with Krautrock, while the 'fuzzy' side comes from the kind of overdriven guitar that sits at the heart of garage rock. Put them together and you get a sound that's as much about the groove as it is about the noise.

They've played some of the bigger showcase events over the last few years — Reeperbahn in Hamburg, ESNS in Eindhoven, FOCUS Wales and The Great Escape — and their SXSW appearance was called 'pure oneness' by The Austin Chronicle. Three early singles, 'Anteater', 'Foggy' and 'Spiders', got support from BBC Introducing, 6Music and Radio X, and led to their debut EP, Spider Rock Forever, which landed them their first headline UK tour. Critics called the EP 'essential listening' (Far Out) and described them as 'one of the best live bands going' (God Is In The TV Zine). A debut album is currently in the works, so this is a good time to catch them before that comes out.

The show is presented by SJM Concerts and is for ages 16+. Tickets are £11, and the venue is The Sunflower Lounge, 76 Smallbrook Queensway, Birmingham B5 4EG. Doors open at 7:00pm on Tuesday 8 December.