A good week in my opinion. A good week for our music scene. Wrexham’s Gallops! left the crowd craving for more when they played at the Sŵn Festival in Cardiff last weekend.

They played to a packed out Kaz Bar on Friday night as part of the Moshi Moshi night and the audience included some influential movers and shakers within the music business – BBC Radio 1 DJ Bethan Elfyn, Sŵn Festival organiser and BBC Radio 1 DJ Huw Stephens, Moshi Moshi label founder/owner Stephen Bass, Moshi Moshi scouts, Kruger Magazine members and other various music industry people.

Following their appearance, Huw Stephens described the Gallops! set as ‘Phenomenal’ whilst Bethan Elfyn proclaimed them ‘Hit of the night’. It’s now up to them to take full advantage of their situation and see how far they can go – there’s no need to rest because they don’t wait for you! ‘They’ being the music industry suits of course.

Not to be ignored of course was the last minute appearance of Deeside’s I Am Austin on the same bill. A personal request of Bethan Elfyn I think, who has not been shy of recommending them to everyone she meets. Good work.

Other positive news to wing its way back to me is that The Roseville Band have been selected as a featured band on the influential NME website. They describe them as ‘Welsh, Kings of Leon-influenced rock’. Not a bad comparison if ever I heard one. Head over to www.nme.com/newmusic and have a look for yourself.

Onto the gigs we are endowed with this week, and we are all very well endowed indeed. First of all we have the welcome and long awaited return of possibly my favourite local band, Camera. They’ve been on a year long sabbatical to write some new material, regroup and organically grow a new member – the very talented Tim Morgan on Keyboards.

To the bands reading this who have not heard of Camera, the local scene has a lot thank them for, especially Wrexham. Here’s a quick history. They started off as The Benjamins in 1999 and quickly began to attract a large fanbase, playing over 250 shows in 2 years and in 2004 they changed their name to Camera following a development deal with Polydor Records which eventually fell through. Undeterred they eventually signed to Cardiff’s My Kung Fu label. In January 2005 they opened the Tsunami Relief Concert at Cardiff’s Millennium Stadium in front of 60,000 people and the national TV cameras.

In 2006 they released their debut album ‘Ashes and Dim Light’ to rave reviews amongst the press and media, it saw one track being used on the BBC 1 golf coverage programme. You see, I consider Camera to be the seed of the current generation of bands around the area, they helped us gain recognition and respect around the UK, particularly the usually northerly ignorant Cardiff. I’m not saying without them there wouldn’t be any music scene around here; I’m simply saying it wouldn’t be as good.

Anyway, those with any decent taste in music will get down to Telfords Warehouse tomorrow night to witness their return. It’s free before 9pm and £4 thereafter.

Panic Promotions have their metal night tonight at McLean’s. The Day Before Mortality, Impaled Existence and Auto Derrota (from Liverpool) will be playing from 8pm. The usual no tracksuits or dodgy flammable 80’s neon shell suits rule applies. Surely rules like that don’t need to be in place in this day and age?

Playing in Central Station tonight you will find Go:Audio. No, I’ve never heard of them either but a quick Wikipedia look-up satisfies the intrigue. Here’s what it tells me; they are a 4 piece pop rock band from London who do not have a bass player and have no desire to use one. They’ve toured with McFly, Scouting For Girls and The Blackout and released their first single ‘Made Up Stories’ in May 2008. How uninteresting. A quick listen to their MySpace and… how uninteresting. The gig tonight is sold out I’ve heard, so maybe I’m missing something?

On Saturday it’s the comeback show for Catskills at The Talbot Bar. They won’t be known as Catskills for much longer though; they are giving away a free promo CD on the night with their new name on the cover and in December they will be releasing a full EP for you to devour. I for one can’t wait. Support comes from the North Walian Get Out Clause who are described as sounding somewhere in-between the Furries and Queens of the Stone Age. It’s £2 entry and kicks off at 8pm.

That, my dear reader, is your fill for this week. Email me at ben@wrexhammusic.co.uk with your news and ill try to mention it next week. Take care.