The Datsuns - Smoke and Mirrors

Kiwi rockers The Datsuns add a healthy handful of fresh flavour and a few dollops of more curious components to their tried and tested recipe of abrasive thrash rock in their latest serving, the enigmatically named 'Smoke & Mirrors'.

The band themselves would be the first to admit their 'garden-shed' sounds are more akin to Bill and Ted than Simon and Garfunkel, but, just as the Wyld Stallyns mushroomed into their own legacy, The Datsuns are progressively becoming more cultured, and innovative, with age.

Most notable of this new essence is the inclusion of gospel choir backing singers in the tracks All Aboard and Too Little Fire, which although successful in contributing an element of calm and tranquillity to their usual aggressive guitar bashing, doesn't quite collaborate comfortably with their haphazard twanging and forceful riffs.

Opening track, Who Are You Stamping Your Foot For? is a fitting introduction to an album which sees the New Zealanders walk forward, after the two steps back of their 2004 album, 'Outta Sight/Outta Mind'. The song is a typically bouncy, fast paced frenzy of punk intermittently intersected by an anthemic 'sticks in your head' chorus, bellowed out in their unique larynx rupturing fashion.

They make no secret that they draw much of their musical influence from Led Zeppelin, and nowhere is this more evident than the guitar riff in penultimate track, Emperor's New Clothes. It's a good thing The Datsuns will never get to perform this track on Top of the Pops (R.I.P.), because OFCOM may have wanted to have a word with them for pilfering the show's 'Whole Lotta Love' theme tune. [Richard Orr]

Nonetheless, mainly due to the obvious inspiration, it is still a quality track on a reasonably enjoyable album, which die-hard aficionados will be glad to see represent the triumphant return to form of their favourite obsolete car brand. [Richard Orr]