Every year, one of the big conjectures in anyone's SXSW wrap up is to pick the band that will be the next big thing. While a lot of bands who play SXSW anymore head down to Austin having already achieved some level of following, many are there to be discovered or to expose new listeners to their sound.

As I finish up my coverage of SXSW 2008, I am ready to go out on a limb to state my prediction for the next band that will (or at least should) make it big. I bestow that honor upon one of Belfast's latest creations, Steer Clear.

It's not often that I'll really rave about a pop punk band, and there are several reasons for that. The main reason is that there are a lot of mediocre pop punk bands out there. Pop music, and pop punk music, is very easy to do on a mediocre level, but it takes a ton of talent and work to step above that mediocre level and play it with a solid level of musical and lyrical skill. Even this early in their career, Steer Clear is achieving that level.

One of the new faces on Blastbeat Records, Steer Clear are some pop punk poster boys that play it all. At times the band plays sweet-sounding music that calls up images of My Chemical Romance and PlayRadioPlay!, and at times they're dropping into momentary doses of nearly two-tone ska beats. Sometimes they crank out simple three-chord punk rock, and then slip into emo that descends into all-out noise, constantly complemented by a great keyboard sound that cements it all together. These guys are all over the place, and I mean that in a really good way.

A solid indicator that Steer Clear are on their way up is the incredible amount of musical talent and polish they exhibit. Despite their youth, there is so much musical and vocal control going on that they sound like serious veterans. Even the song that the band seems to like least, the one they introduce as the "cheesiest song in the world", bears the cheekily clever title "Please Be My Girlfriend Again" and is a pop punk masterpiece, with great guitar hooks, sincerely bittersweet vocal, and a simple, yet fleshed-out sound. I am more impressed by the perfomance of these guys than I have been by many similar-sounding bands with longer histories, deeper catalogs and more years in the scene.

And one more thing to point out - whether it's the Irish disposition, the Blastbeat influence or the simple fact that these are some all-around good kids, they conduct themselves toward their fans in a way that shows they really appreciate the attention, unlike some young American punk bands.

At this time, the band doesn't have any U.S. distribution, but hopefully that will change as they get exposure. For now, you can listen to them on their Blastspace and Myspace sites. Hopefully after that, you'll be into them enough to pick up their import CD, No... You Hang Up on Amazon. It's definitely worth the import price.

If you want, you can wait and see if the album gets U.S. distribution. You'll pay a little less for the record, but you'll also have given up all of the credibility you could have gained by knowing about them before anyone else did.

Photo © Nicole Lucas