Yahoo! Music Album Review

Released on 06/03/06
Label: Parlophone

With guitars back to the fore and independent labels releasing million sellers, it doesn't take a broadsheet arts correspondent to spot that there's a whiff of Britpop in the air. Suddenly, it seems, being British is a good thing. Actors are getting leading roles which don't involve villainy, eccentricity or tweed. Our comedy is funny and America, having bled R&B and hip hop dry, has taken Coldplay, Gorillaz, Franz Ferdinand, Razorlight, Kaiser Chiefs, and, errr, James Blunt, to their hearts and are once again, buying British. It seems cries of 'Cool Britannia' are being tentatively whispered, and nowhere more so than on "Wilderness Is Paradise Now".

Like the last decade never happened, the debut from Reading's Morning Runner is a very British album. Rock'n'roll with a stiff-upper-lip and a Union Jack stitched on its Y-fronts, its fizz and clatter is part The Strokes' NYC swagger, part Coldplay's well mannered reserve. Valve humming guitars rubbing against a dignified backbone of plodding piano and surging melodies to make those stiff-upper-lips quiver. It's music written to lift the spirits of a Glastonbury crowd out of the mud.

True, it's very 1996. But it's, generally, the best bits. Thankfully, Morning Runner are not the new Menswear. From the Radiohead distortion of "It's Not Like Everyone's My Friend", through "Burning Benches"' Verve-ish introspection to phenomenal Supergrass shout-along, "Gone Up In Flames", they've captured the essence of Great British music. Guided by Britpop veteran, producer John Cornfield (Oasis, The Verve, Supergrass, Reef, Muse, Razorlight) they make music with an endearing naivety and sweetness. Sad songs with an unswerving optimism and screaming anthems which teeter on complete emotional breakdown.

Sensitive souls with high hopes, big ideas and more intellect than attitude has always been the way of the true British hero. By that maxim, Morning Runner have rock gods written through them like Brighton rock. However, there are flaws. At points it all gets a bit too poetic and cryptic for its own good, losing the heart-ripping emotion which the soaring choruses and singer Matthew Greener's tireless pleading work so hard to engender. At others, they sound like they're desperately trying to top the last soaring, heart-ripping chorus.

Ultimately, "Wilderness Is Paradise Now" isn't the greatest Britpop album in the world…ever. But there are moments - "Gone Up In Flames" pogoing on the terraces, "Have A Good Time" spilling beer all over the place - when it certainly feels like it is.