Gotham

Serrated guitars, clipped beats, angular riffs, pummelled basslines and snarled vocals form the backbone; throw in some scratchy beats, blistering samples and crank the volume up to full. It’s The Pistols getting pissed with Primal Scream, Scott 4 having a love-in with The D4. Nah, it’s just the in yer face rock ’n’ roll of Radio 4.

From the insistent, percussive ‘Start A Fire’ to the infinitely danceable ‘Eyes Wide Open’ and the straight-ahead balls-to-the-wall rock of ‘Certain Tragedy’ or ‘New Disco’, Radio 4 prove themselves true condenders. Then there’s the almost house-beat of ‘Dance To The Underground’, which sounds like The Clash re-suited and booted for the post-millenial generation. Or you could check out the dub reggae rhythms of ‘Pipe Bombs’ or the Daft Punk-lite of ‘End Of The Rope’. The relatively mellow ‘Speaking In Codes’ is as smooth and polished as Radio 4 are likely to get: this is their ‘Fool’s Gold’, so to speak.

Sometimes the production lets it down. I’m all for lo-fi, but the searing ‘Save Your City’ sounds like the engineer was outside having a fag while the boys were busy tearing up the studio. That’s a minor complaint, though, and the quality and sheer versatility (read, wilful diversity) on offer here bodes extremely well for the future of Radio 4.