What Would Jesus Drive – Black and Blue

With a tune called Boomtown Twats this bratty-sounding London four piece were off to a running start, but sadly their choppy brand of yelping pop just doesn’t go the distance. They play the kind of edgy indie rock that was cool five years ago, think the Artic Monkeys, but with cockney accents and a laydee handling the better half of the vocal duties. Same kind of observational lyrical urban boredom schtick too: songs about beggars and pints and power cuts and that - but with added jokes that vary in quality from dead pan to down the pan.

It’s only the cute boy/girl dynamic that saves the record from the indie-landfill on whose edge it teeters dangerously. Initially immediate - promising at the very least a good night out live - the record falls apart after a few spins and turns irritating; when boy singer Tim lists off the sweary-words on Love is... to sniggers from girl singer (and Wife) Amy, you want to smack them both firmly in the mouth and leave them, well, a little black and blue.