Valve

YOU MAY have been led to believe otherwise, but there are, in fact, no fewer than eight deadly sins; pride, covetousness, lust, envy, gluttony, anger, sloth and recording useless cover versions in an attempt to get a hit.

The first seven I have no problem with, but the last deserves a punishment far beyond anything Dante ever dreamed up. Track eleven on Valve is 'It's All Over Now, Baby Blue', transformed from a weary, surreal dismissal of a substandard lover (I think) to a bouncy, brash Britpop anthem which means precisely nothing.

The Milltown Brothers' problem is that they only have one song. Everything they get their youthful paws on becomes the aforementioned two-year-old post-Manc jangly anthem. They also have only one mood, which is irritatingly boisterous. They play their song well and, in three- to four-minute bursts, quite addictively. 'When It Comes' (which is in places uncannily like 'Streamers' by the Blue Aeroplanes), 'Killing all the Good Men' and 'Falling Straight Down' are likable, but forty-five minutes of unrelenting sameness grates somewhat.

'Pictures (Round My Room)' is the Brothers' stab at angst ("Don't think you can assume/You're the reason I'm in with a cold/writing a diary and staring at walls"), but due to singer Matt Nelson's inability to express anything except sunny self-assuredness and because of those consistently, annoyingly upbeat jangly guitars driving away either side of him, they will be spared the dubious honour of having their faces plastered all over the nation's bedsit walls.

One wonders who the band and A...M are aiming at with this release: those who have slept through the musical developments of the past two years perchance? The Milltown Brothers had their moment, around the time of the release of 'Which Way Should I Jump?' and 'Slinky', but that moment is no more.

The bandwagon these guys are hopping on passed through long since.

* Niall Crumlish