Shoulder Voices

ROLLERSKATE SKINNY: "Shoulder Voices" (Placebo)

I'm going to break one of the ten commandments of pop music by admitting that I did not love The Beatles. Yeah, great on the radio or at a disco or something like that but I have none of their albums, nor do I intend to have. While I'm at it I'll break a lesser commandment and say that My Bloody Valentine never did much for me either.

London-based Dublin band - formerly Shake - Rollerskate Skinny take their name from the novel that inspired the assassination of John Lennon. Ken Griffin's voice has much of the same sweet melodic phrasing of a Lennon or McCartney - check out 'Some Give Birth'. And there is much about the album that reminds me of Beatlesque studio experimenting. (I had a flatmate who was a Beatles fanatic, so I've heard quite a bit of them.)

Ok, there's a family connection between Rollerskate Skinny and My Bloody Valentine, so a comparison could be a lazy and obvious device. However, there is a definite link in the way both bands have created their music within a studio context. Shoulder Voices is most definitely a studio manipulated affair. There's lots of unusual sounds and changes in tempo cropping up all over the place. There's swirls and surges and vocal manipulation. I find it all to be well executed, clean and strangely cold and lifeless.

I saw Rollerskate Skinny live some months back and I felt they had a lot of raw and vital energy. But I can't find it on Shoulder Voices. I've played this album again and again and I simply can't get in. Maybe it's because of the lyrics. A lot of the time they're mixed just below the point of being decipherable. When I can hear them they sound like clever attempts at being poetic and obscure and all that. Like on 'Shallow Thunder': "All the shallow thunder from this beggar's mouth/Is just a knuckle white fear of everything real." (Give me Shane MacGowan anyday.) Or sample the shivery Goth - I hate all that Mission-skittery Goth! - of 'Bring On Stigmata': "Hey, let's take our lives from here to hell/No one stays alive here for very long."

There are two songs I really like on Shoulder Voices. 'So Far Down Up To Heaven - even though it has a corny, pretentious title - is a beautiful, mellow pop song. Again, the Beatles link is unmistakable. However, in this instance they borrow the very best from those pop gods; the ability to mould irresistible melodies. 'Bow Hitch-Hiker' is my stand-out track. It has a driving drum intro and then continues in a bouncy hummable manner, with pop hooks galore, and just enough twist in the arrangement to add the spice of originality.

Rollerskate Skinny are very talented musicians, and Ken Griffin is a fine singer. Unfortunately, for all its quality production and interesting arrangements, Shoulder Voices leaves me cold. However, if you're into the Beatles, My Bloody Valentine, Cocteau Twins and the like, I'm sure you'll find lots to enjoy. Me, I'm a sinner.

• Gerry McGovern