Album: Guillemots, Red (Polydor)

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Is this "the first great pop record of 2008" or more "the Lighthouse Family in an Indian restaurant"?

Such has been the early reaction to the Guillemots' second album and there's truth in both. Opener "Kriss Kross" is so overblown it would take a stage-full of sequinned showgirls to do it visual justice. And then 'Red' decides to go all 1990s George Michael sleek. At times, they just sound like any chart band you care to mention. Probably worth reminding ourselves, then, that before it was used to describe this kind of music, "pop" was a word more frequently employed to describe the sound of a bubble bursting.

Download this: No one could accuse ' Kriss Kross' of not wanting to be noticed