Night Noise Team - Ronde de Nuit

Bearing in mind the London-centric nature of the British music industry, it's nice to hear a band poetically describe a street you can see from your bedroom window. "I was looking down the barrel of Leith Walk, its natural swerve, graceful, a fishtail caught in mid-beat," intones vocalist Sean Ormsby somewhat ominously on Cafe Noir At Midnight. With a thrall to the darker side of early 80s electro-pop, and some requisite Interpol angular guitar and baritone vocals, Night Noise Team could easily be written off in these derivative times. However, their unabashed enthusiasm for a good melody helps elevate them somewhat. Detonate bridges a seemingly unassailable gap between Joy Division and Scissor Sisters, handled with an effortless pop nous that may induce apoplexy with the puritanical, dour indie crowd. The foreboding cinematic strings of Death Walk, which cleanly splits Ronde de Nuit, keeps things edgy and suggests plenty of potential should they choose to take this darker route. [Darren Carle]