The Blood Arm – Turn and Face Me

As one would expect of Franz Ferdinand's favourite band, an endorsement which may or may not be decreasing in value with each passing year, Los Angeles quartet The Blood Arm are pop-loving art rockers. Staunch Anglophiles, they draw inspiration from the mainstream British New Wave of the late seventies and early eighties and happily wear their influences on their sleeves.

She's a Guillotine opens with a tribal beat that's clearly intended as a nod to Adam Ant, before exploding into the kind of aggressively melodic, keyboard coated power-pop that was once Elvis Costello's stock-in-trade. Somehow the song finds room for an impassioned call and response coda in the vein of Dexys before its two and a half minutes are up. At its best, as on this track, The Creditors and the more thoughtful Forever Is Strange, the group's music is invigorating and well constructed. But on the whole, Turn and Face Me is just too cluttered and self-conscious to warrant much of a return [Lewis Porteous]