Hi-Fi Serious

Hailing from the UK, this is A’s third full album and, judging by the amount of airplay the single "Nothing" is getting on MTV (the video was shot in Cape Town — you never thought the Civic Centre could look hip), it should be the one that’ll get them a stack of new fans in countries they haven’t heard of yet.

While there’s nothing new here, there’s a ton of effort in the right direction.

A means to rock, and they cover their bases pretty well — there’s punk, there’s whatever you call the kind of rock with lots of electronic bits in it and there’s great production by Al Clay (Feeder, Pixies, Therapy?).

It’s a pity that the hectic tempo and volume isn’t always backed up by rocking tunes, but lesser bands have succeeded with average tunes. Lyrically, nothing’s poetic, but at least they don’t sing about utter crap: they address the temptation of McSociety on "Starbucks", the joys of touring on "The Springs" (did someone say ‘emo-rock’?) and of course, themselves, on the title track.

A consists of three brothers and two other blokes who really just wanted to be in a band and make money from it. But there are CDs with far worse intentions out there which you could be wasting your money on.

Personal favourites are "Going Down" and "Took It Away" respectively for their tune and taking the piss out of PopStars. By the fourth listen you realise that there are actually decent tunes, but that lead singer Jason Perry’s vocals are just a bit too forced and two dimensional to make it hummable.

But then again, should you be able to hum a rock tune?

(London Records/Gallo)