Never mind yer Arctic Blondes or yer Milburn Monkeys, Sheffield's Little Man Tate are proper Lords in a post-post-industrial wasteland where the birds will let you cop a feel for a spam fritter and the alcopops pour like bile from the local BNP candidate.Jon Windle's guttersnipe tales of serial shaggers and scenester bashing will gather most of the plaudits here but guitarist Maz Marriot deserves special mention for his surprisingly expressive range, tackling everything from crunching, Who-esque powerchords to sighing lyricism a la Johnny Marr with aplomb.
The gormlessly-titled 'House Party At Boothy's' manages the nifty trick of sounding like 'Digsy's Dinner' and not being totally annoying, with a na-na-naa refrain that resembles Sham 69 murdering 'Hey Jude' at chucking out time.
Elsewhere, 'Man I Hate Your Band' is a cheerily mean-spirited ditty to spark lifelong friendships based on shared contempt, and 'Sexy In Latin' is a thrilling minor-chord bounce like Dirty Pretty Things minus the baggage.
Like all good drunken fondles it runs out of ideas a bit, reaching a low point with 'Court Report', an unwelcome throwback to a Britpop yesteryear when everyone thought they were Ray Davies and wrote shit songs about wife-swapping inbetweeners driving brand new cars with CD players.
Still, even second base is a kind of result, and you could do a lot worse than grope around for a copy of this fine debut. Now how about lending us 50p for that spam fritter?
