NME Breakthrough: The Wombats, February 23, 2009, O2 Shepherds Bush Empire, London Directed by Gunther Kutsch, 2010

Humorous pop-punk bands are a mainstay of many large towns, so it takes something more for one to break into the mainstream. Enter the Wombats, a three-man cross between Art Brut’s Wire-like fractured art-punk and Half Man Half Biscuit’s wicked Liverpudlian humor. Not only are the Wombats fellow Scousers, they have a tangential Beatles connection: singer and guitarist Matthew ‘Murph’ Murphy and drummer Dan Haggis formed the Wombats in 2003 when they were students at the Paul McCartney-founded Liverpool Institute for the Performing Arts.