by Monica Davies

Created on: July 18, 2009

For someone who's worked in the music industry for a few years now, I still tend to take an awful lot of cultural advice from my family. But the fact is, if a band makes it all the way into the musically-aristocratic world of my siblings, I know they're really good. I already knew this about The Black Hotels - the very first time I heard their song, One Weekend, I knew they'd have a hit - a hit so big they'd just never be taken off their local music scene. Ever. But then one day, my oldest brother phoned up and said Hey, there's this song on the radio by some local band, called 'Beautiful Mornings'. It's awesome, where can I get it? and I sat up and really took notice of what the Black Hotels had to offer.

The Johannesburg-based quintet makes infectious indie music that mixes a late Blur-Britpop attitude with the emotion of Death Cab For Cutie's intense tunes. And they're a hard-working local music stalwart, to boot.

They spent many months touring to support bands like then-labelmates, Evolver, when they had just released their first single, Natalie, nationally. This, luckily, introduced a fair amount of fans to the sound of their debut EP. But it was late in 2007, when One Weekend hit the national airwaves, that The Black Hotels became a must-hear band. Beautiful Mornings followed as their next single, and brought even more fan appreciation nationwide. They've since done many of their own tours, both in their home province and across the coastal areas.

In November 2008, the group returned to the studio to record songs for their debut album due for release in May 2009. (The release is, true to form, currently doing very well on the South African music circuit, with the first single off the new album currently charting on stations across the country.)

It's unfortunate that bands like this sometimes get overlooked as number one song material because few people believe that a local band can be good enough to shoot to number one that fast. But The Black Hotels are, without a doubt, and hopefully the next record they release will be astounding enough to convince the last few nay-sayers of that. We - my whole family and I - can't wait to hear it.

For more info, log on to www.blackhotels.co.za or join them on Myspace or Facebook!

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