Actress Hands - Boys Need Jazz

Actress Hands are a Brighton based outfit that, bless them, have released a tranche of sunshiney powerpop in mid-winter. They almost get away with it as well. Boys Need Jazz opens with a Stereolab meets Teenage Fanclub piece of pop momentum, and this pretty much sets the tone for the rest of the record - summery key changes, skyward fanfares of horns and occasional fuzzy guitar bridges. It's all very pleasant, but halfway through you feel it needs a kick up the heiney to wake it from its sleepily grinning torpor and explore some new ground. Overall, this record seems like a good jump-off point for the band to move into doing something a little more varied. Although the slightly limited sonic palette becomes a tad monotonous after a while, the lyric "Despite the stitches on your jawline, didn't we have fun last night" is surely a design for life. [Matt Gollock]