The All New Adventures of Us - Best Loved Goodnight Tales

Having never met the seven members that comprise Southampton’s The All New Adventures of Us personally, it is perhaps not fair to surmise that they are a lovely bunch of polite, well-read and privately educated upstanding young people, but that's exactly what this record suggests. In fact, forget fairness: singing about holding hands and making shadow puppets - would it be rude to stab a guess that these guys are all still virgins? Probably. However there is a definite childlike naivety and innocence to their sound which, when combined with lyrics of such wide-eyed hope as “Does anyone remember laughter?/Does anyone remember love?” it is difficult to hold in a patronising “awwww”. That or to get the boke a bit. The very English, irritatingly spoken-not-sung vocal delivery is the only aspect that would set it apart from the uber-emotional tear-jerking of Dashboard Confessional. [Emma Smith]