Although their name will be unfamiliar to most, Bristol's Angel Tech were once tipped by the NME as "the next big thing" along with Coldplay. Whilst the latter's ascent in popularity was a sound prediction, the former were dropped before they even had chance to release an album. It's taken until 2006 for their first long player to come out on their own record label and - in contradiction to many of the over-hyped bands who failed to make it - it is well worth the wait.

A possible cause of Angel Tech's misfortune was because they are not a group that can easily be pigeon-holed; incorporating dreampop, electronica and emotionally-charged rock music into their sonic template. Their songs are also potentially commercial but full of the kind of twisted lyrics hardly ideal for an FM Radio audience. A case in point is 'Skewered'; a beat-heavy, slow-burner that is built around a lyrical hook of "Like the blood of Jesus, I get drunk all round the world". Other would-be anthems include the FX-saturated chorus 'Calm Down' and a grandstanding finale to 'Molotov'. The group even sound like a digitised Shelleyan Orphan on the folky, almost jovial 'Embers'. The only point at which they come unstuck is on the finale 'The Jukebox Will Tear Us Apart' which is essentially a read-through of all the music that has inspired them, set to a disappointingly basic tune. Yet apart from that minor slip, what we have here is a great alternative pop album to rival that of the also recently resurgent ROC.