At The Lake mix the greatness of John Barry, the pomposity of The Smiths and the guile of My Bloody Valentine in a 100 megawatt blender, turned on by Rufus Wainwright. Their sound is immediate, loud, intense and yet unabashedly beautiful. Singer Matt Forder bears the dark eye-rings of having gazed too long into the abyss and his voice is like a dirty angel. Jim Machin & Tim Buckland provide layer on layer of intelligent guitar distortion, honey-wrapped soundwaves and almost impossible-sounding textures while bassist Shaun Cairns & drummer Warren Peddie slice through with deep, dark throbbing rhythm. There is a real creative buzz when they are together - much of their live set is condensed from electrified epic sessions in dingy West London practice rooms. Their non-musical obsessions include writing, film-making, surfing, yetis and all things Carry On. But it was their shared appreciation of ear shattering musical ground-breakers which brought these 5 guys together in late 2004. They were driven to write, perform and write some more, obsessively honing and refining their sound with each song. Throughout 2005, an ever-growing and dedicated fan-base started to emerge and their highlight of the year was playing the Wireless Festival in Hyde Park alongside the likes of Babyshambles and Kasabian. December 2005 saw the release of their first single 'These Days' (Popfiction) and the band's profile raised thanks to radio exposure by Steve Lamacq on BBC 6 Music and Zane Lowe on BBC Radio 1, as well as being playlisted on London's Xfm.