The Twang - Love It When I Feel Like This (B-Unique/Polydoor)

Hailing from Birmingham, The Twang has already received comparisons to Oasis, and garnered much attention as a group of "baggy revivalists".

But this doesn't always mean very much for us in New Zealand, isolated as we are from that over-active UK music hype machine.

Sounding like the lovechild of Oasis, U2 and The Streets, with a mixture of Brit-pop, reverb-filled lead guitar and street poetry, The Twang produces a distinctly British sound.

Vocalist Phil Etheridge is another frontman from the British street poet lineage, with his predominantly spoken word vocals, musing about life in Birmingham on debut single Wide Awake, lads off the rails on Reap What You Sow and love letters on Either Way.

However, his social commentary is never as insightful or incisive as recent albums from Bloc Party and Arctic Monkeys, and you feel as though you've heard it all before.

Musically, Love It When I Feel Like This incorporates harmonica, strings and reggae flourishes.

But by the second half of the album, things start to become a bit formulaic.

On Love It When I Feel Like This, The Twang has served up an occasionally solid, but overall unremarkable debut.

Rating: 2.5/5

- © Fairfax NZ News