[karkus30]

Rival Schools/Quicksands singer songwriter gets all acoustic on this album.

Gone is the hard rock sound and in comes a more mellow style that reminds you of bands like Blur, Beck or The Kinks and also early Bowie and Dylan, in effect it has a sort of British sound and its hard to believe that this is a hard rocking frontman. The vocals are handled with that sort of emotional quiver that makes the most of the clever hooks and melodies that inhabit every song, each track seems to have something you can grab hold of and love, be it some vocal inflection or some clever sliding guitar riff.

This is an album that most people will find difficult to dislike and many will take to their hearts. There are a couple of songs (and a couple of lyrics) which are suspect, but overall this is a strong performance.

The recording is open and airy in the best traditions of 'live' even though its a studio album it has the sense of intimacy you get with albums like Nirvana's unplugged.

In conclusion, this is a really nice album, one that I dont seem to get tired of listening to, its really what bands like Travis, Coldplay, Snow Patrol etc should have been..............y'know, replacing the commercialism with real emotion and sensitivity.

4/5 recommended.