Yahoo! Music Review

Released on 25/02/08
Label: Warner

Addressing the peculiarities of portliness in a thin person's world, The Young Knives are better placed than most to deliver an outsiders' statement. The Oxfordshire-based trio still resemble a group of bankers on the razzle or, more sinisterly, what you imagine The Residents look like when they take off their eyeballs. But while 2006's "Voices Of Animals And Men" album skirted and flirted with comedy - which, even if slightly self-depreciating, was highly annoying - the '08 vintage has come out fighting.

In what sounds like a mid-life crisis writ early, "Up All Night" finds Henry Dartnall realising the futility of cool and the death of the individual. "What's the point 'cos everyone looks famous / Everybody is special in their mind's eye" he sings in a chorus that should probably be transcribed into Latin and nailed to the wall of Peaches Geldof et al. Who'd have thought it, but perhaps the Young Knives have true greatness within them? For this is a truly cracking single - full of purpose, bile and attitude.

    by Adam Webb