Artist: Electric Soft Parade
Hometown: Brighton, U.K.
Album: No Need To Be Down-Hearted, out April 24th.
First blog mention: A Feb. 17th, 2006 MP3 post on Wiredset.
The Build-Up: Last May, a handful of sites (including sixeyes and You Ain't No Picasso) wrote about the group's 2005 Human Body EP. After that, Electric Soft Parade received only a handful of mentions until...
The Dam-Break: Down-Hearted's "If That's The Case, I Don't Know" started was included on a SXSW sampler in February; shortly thereafter, it wound up on a slew of sites, including Music Of The Moment and fingertips. Last week, a pile-on of ESP love resulted in the band landing on Elbo.ws' "What's Hot?" artists list.
Odds of Backlash: 6-1. There are so many British guitar bands nowadays, it's impossible one of them to become big enough to warrant a full-on backlash.
Are They Worthy?: Yep. ESP has struggled for years to make it in America, and while Down-Hearted isn't as strong as the group's 2001 Holes In The Wall, it's about time that brothers Alex and Thomas White get some big-ups. A brief career-recap follows:

The Electric Soft Parade - If That's The Case, Then I Don't Know [MP3, link expired]
The Electric Soft Parade - Bruxellisation [MP3, link expired]
The Electric Soft Parade - Empty At The End [MP3, link expired]
The Electric Soft Parade [MySpace]