Turin Brakes - Dark On Fire

Dark On Fire starts promisingly with the choppy guitar riffs, driving drum codas and spidery piano fills of Last Chance, bolstering the stated idea of Turin Brakes as shifting styles between records. However, much of the remainder of the album walks some pretty unappealing ground for 2007; Stereophonics, a love-struck Richard Ashcroft, Oasis at their most cloying. There is the merest hint of 'funk', however, if you're going to 'borrow' Disco Inferno's bass line, take a leaf from LCD Soundsystem and staple it to a puppy-slaying, metal disco freak-out, not a limp Starsailor knock-off. Some things are sacred. On the plus side there's the requisite amount of potential singles here, particularly Time Waster which chugs along on a cheerful, upbeat summery vibe and the aforementioned Last Chance. However, upon buying Dark On Fire, listeners may feel that they've been snagged by that age-old trap of inverse single-to-filler ratio. Tread carefully. [Darren Carle]