WHILE some of the world’s biggest bands and artists begin the new year by announcing long awaited albums and tours, one young Oxfordshire band are already celebrating after being tipped as one of the world’s best new acts.

Abingdon band Lacuna Common were featured by music website NME as one of the 100 essential artists for 2020, with the influential site naming them one of the best new bands “on the planet, both big and small”.

It called the four-piece “boozy Oxford indie-rockers heading straight for the moshpit,” insisting they were “a band for those who never fell out of love with straight-up indie music.”

It said the band, which is fronted by singer Alfie Franks, “sound perfect in dingy toilet circuit venues when you’re three pints down and up for letting out that frustration”.

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The accolade comes after a busy year for the band, which saw them performing at Truck Festival in Steventon, playing two UK tours, and beating bands from around the country to win O’Neill’s pubs’ Sound of Summer competition – which earned them £1,000, a nationwide tour and a support slot for Scottish rockers Biffy Clyro at this year’s Jack Daniels Presents event in Birmingham.