Agent Blue - 'A Stolen Honda Vision' (Fierce Panda) Released 23/01/06

Straight outta Stoke-On-Trent and Hull but vocally coming across like a peculiar mix of London and Manchester (Is that what people in Stoke sound like? Answers on a postcard) Agent Blue sound like The Libertines and The Paddingtons having a party in a the back of a van going 90 miles an hour down the M1 chasing the ghosts of the Happy Mondays.

It's punk Jim, but not as we know it. It grabs you at the beginning with ‘New School Devil’ and speeds along at a desperate pace through ’Sex, Drugs and Rocks Through Your Window’ and a ditty about fear of the future ‘Children’s Children’. But it sags by the time you hit the middle of the album and no amount of shouting from singer Nic Andrews can cover it up. Picking up a bit with ode to drugs ‘THC’, though having a song about hedonism is a bit odd just a few tracks after one worrying about the children, maybe that the excuse. Closer ‘Gear’ is ambitious and builds towards a spaced-out climax.

Giving the impression that unlike some of there peers they have the potential to move beyond three-chords-and-shouting. There is a lot of this new scuzz-punk popping up in the Libertines aftermath but these cats are playing some of the better stuff. This album was due to come out in 2004 but a lot of label issues have held it up. Apparently their sound has matured a lot since too, so one to keep an ear on.