Following on from Part 1 of our artists to keep an ear (or even two) out for  HERE  for in 2016 – here’s our top six ..

6.The Vryll Society

The Vryll Society were the last signing the late Alan Wills made to Deltasonic Records after spotting their raw potential, and taking them under his  wing.  The band were apparently certainly not lacking in self-belief  and have now put their money where their mouth is and have recently been producing the sort of show-stopping live performances that have left many mesmerised. Whilst the instrumentation does recall the likes of early Stone Roses and The Verve, the band certainly have their own unique style which perhaps becomes more apparent when you catch them live.

5.INHEAVEN

INHEAVEN reminds us a little of The Skids colliding with The Arcade Fire, there’s a driving rhythm and squalling chiming  guitars which conjure up an anthemic soundtrack for disaffected youth. INHEAVEN are at heart, bruised romantics, who still believe, that despite the world being f***ed up there’s still the hope of a brighter tomorrow.

4.The Big Moon

Comprised of Juliette Jackson(guitar, lead vocals), Celia Archer (bass, vocals) Soph Nathan (guitar, vocals), and Fern Ford (drums) The Big Moon arrived armed with self-belief, a twinkle in their eyes and a clutch of songs that certainly didn’t suggest they’d been produced by a band who had only been together for just over a year.

They’ve  been compared to everything from grunge to Brit-pop, however in truth their music is rather more cunning and not entirely easy to crowbar into tidy genre specific boxes. The band combine woozy atmospherics, disorientating changes of pace, uplifting melodies and exuberant pop hooks and live they genuinely look like they’re having the very best of times.

3.Skylar Fri

Sophisticated electronic chillwave tinged pop, commercial enough to get the ears of the pop crowd, and equally hip enough to seduce the cool kids. Moreover, if all pop were as well crafted and beautifully as Ms Fri’s output to date then perhaps the pop charts and radio playlists wouldn’t resemble the sort of ghastly corporate shitefest that appears to be designed solely for Estate Agents to get their jiggy on after a hard week fleecing the general public.  Skylar has kept her identity under wraps during 2015 but promises us there’ll be much more music in the coming months and she fully intends to emerge from the shadows in 2016.

2.Dilly Dally

We know that new music bloggers can get pretty excited about new artists on a regular basis, but it’s hard not to get excited when you come across a band as special as Toronto’s Dilly Dally.  Visceral power allied to soaring pop hooks combine with  Katie Monks magnificently malevolent throat-shredding roar, which is a thing of infinite wonder.  Their first long player  Sore is a wonderful debut and the band will arrive for their first UK dates early in 2016.

1.Chløë Black

It would be easy to make comparisons to the dark femme fatale shtick that Lana Del Rey has so successfully made her own, and whilst Chløë Black’s songs have that same fatalistic sense of doomed grandeur, vocally she blows LDR and most of her peers away.  She has the sort has a powerhouse of vocal that could stop traffic, but there is no egregious caterwauling here, no sense that the bigger the warble the more intense the emotion. She deploys her undoubted vocal talents wisely and fuses, jazz, soul, blues and RnB mixing subtlety and power. Her debut album is mooted to be released in 2016 and will hopefully see her break through to the mainstream without her record label insisting on shrink-wrapped homogenisation, a battle many artists seem to have to endure –  Memo to labels, trust your artists.