Album: The Fratellis

Glasgow's Fratellis are the latest indie scruffs to leap straight into mainstream acceptance, rushing in to fill a post-Libertines vacuum that's fast becoming overcrowded. Tart and lairy, their sound and attitude echoes recent Britpop antecedents, particularly the Arctic Monkeys. Joe Fratelli's diction and delivery is strikingly similar to Alex Turner's, and he too crams in far too many words at too hectic a pace. Their songs have the requisite jaunty insouciance and singalong hooks, but there's far less going on in them. The album is basically a string of one-sided sexual jousts, risky pick-ups of dodgy birds swiftly followed by rasping put-downs of them: the "young soul shagger beggin' me to bag her" in "Ole Black'n'Blue Eyes"; the girl in "Flathead" he saw "one time at the back of the club, chewing on glass and a ticket stub"; the hippie chick who takes his cherry in her camper van in "Got Ma Nuts From A Hippy". But there's none of the depth and texture of the Monkeys, and the incessant laddishness becomes tiresome. Their penchant for embellishment with pointless chops and changes and tricksy chants recalls Britprog-poppers Mansun; never a good sign.

DOWNLOAD THIS: 'Henrietta', 'Flathead'