Yahoo! Music Review

Released on 28/05/07
Label: Columbia

God, you can really be wrong about a band. On the scant basis of two allrightish singles and edge-blunting appearances on both SonyBMG's artists' roster and the NME Awards Tour, the odds were stacked against Mumm-Ra (named after a cartoon villain) making a debut album that would actually end up on anyone's end-of-year list. But the Bexhill-On-Sea five-piece have done just that.

Yes, "These Things Move In Threes" is largely standard-issue, guitar-led indie rock with the obligatory Coldplay/Snow Patrol fanfares but it has a sense of musical joie de vivre that makes certain colleagues in the field sound and feel like ASBO kids doing "London's Burning" on the recorder. Just as you fear something's getting a bit too run-of-the-mill, they'll throw in a '70s guitar solo, a dreamy Cocteau Twins riff, or a Joe Meek-with-handclaps segment.

Key track "What Would Steve Do?", in fact, encompasses as many different nods to classic English pop as anyone could wish for, offering tasters of no less than "Sergeant Pepper", The Libertines, OMD-doing-John Hughes, The Kinks and The Fratellis. In addition, the LP oozes a warmth and personality that make you no more inclined to criticise their choice of genre than you would Ray Mears's choice of waterproof trouser. Even opening eco-anthem "It's Now or Never" is laced with mild humour: "Are you willing to dance for the sake of romance? / I'm a terrible dancer but hey, let them look let them laugh / I'm not listening - for you I'm persisting."

There are, naturally, caveats - the reverb-heavy guitars-as-armoured-vehicles approach that's won them such a strong live reputation perhaps needs an in-studio rethink. And the second half of the album struggles to impose itself upon the memory half as readily as the first half: from a listener's perspective "This Is Easy" is anything but, while closing track "Down Down Down" is an inexcusable seven minute slab of Floydish abstract fretwan*ery.

But there are enough fine moments to untangle the bunting for. Joyfully jangly title track "These Things Move In Threes" starts off like Bloc Party and ends up as the Lightning Seeds. The sublime and psychedelic "She's Got You High" is both sliding-down-the-banisters cocky, and first-cuckoo-of-spring euphoric, with frontman James 'Noo' New and guitarist Oli Frost scootering as if on silver Piaggios, through exquisite phrasing and chirpy harmonies addressed to a mate in love. "Song B" might be The Jam teaming-up with Clearlake and fronted by an early period Damon Albarn.

Best of all, there's not a po-faced particle in the whole thing - Mumm-Ra tread instead the sun-lit space between self-pity and gung-ho; between ponderousness and flippancy; and invite us all to join them. Damn them. They're as infectious as impetigo.

    by Anna Britten