The Wombats - 1996

With Techno Fan the Wombats delivered by far the best record of their career - a joyous burst of youthful exuberance by way of streamlined Pulp-esque Brit-pop. For a band that so often play on their own sense of goofyness, Techno Fan showed that when they aim for something more serious, they can really excel.

New single 1996 attempts to do much the same, this time going for a more rough and ready sound and packs in a colossal reedy synth riff in the process. The Wombats have something of a penchant for reminiscing over their childhood in their lyrics, and as far as song-worthy material goes, it treads a dangerous line between nostalgia and overly-quaint.

While 1996 fails to recapture the sugary pop sweetness that propelled Techno Fan, its rousing guitar parts, sense of ramshackle hard graft and chanty football ground vocals help mark it out as another of the group's best. It leaves only one question, why the abysmal Anti-D was ever released as a single...

1996 is released on 28th November.

New releases round-up - 15th August 2011

Kids In Glass Houses - In Gold Blood

Back with a harder, more gritty sound, Wales' current favourite rockers make it three times lucky with their new album. Following on from the success of last year's Dirt record (which included the amazing Undercover Lover), In Gold Blood is all about the adrenaline, thrills and spills. If you like your rock with the taste of gasoline and sweat-stained venues all over it, In Gold Blood is the album for you - Kids In Glass Houses, re-affirming again why they're one of the most exciting young rock groups around.

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Charlie Simpson - Young Pilgrim

He's been in Busted, dallied around with Fightstar, but his solo venture is without a doubt his most comfortable fit to date. Turning to melodic acoustic riffs and folk-tinged melodies, Charlie Simpson's Young Pilgrim album is a real surprise delight for the summer. At its best it surges into Coldplay mega-ballad territory, all emotion and an authenticity that was only ever hinted at in Simpson's previous work. Here, we see him for real, all gimmicks stripped aside - the results are highly impressive.

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Emeli Sande - Heaven

Twitter has been in something of a frenzy over Emeli in the past few weeks, but us die-hard Cheryl Cole fans have been aware of her for rather longer. After all, she co-wrote the b-side Boys to Cheryl's 3 Words single. Now there's a fact for you! These days though, Emeli is making waves on her own, putting out soulful pop records like Heaven, which comes on like a lost Massive Attack hit. Top stuff.

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Wombats - Our Perfect Disease

The last Wombats single Techno Fan was something of a revelation - finally a song from them that was not just bearable, but very, very good. Our Perfect Disease thankfully takes a number of pointers from the aforementioned track then as its full of the same bonkers synth moments and catchy hooks that marked Techno Fan out above the indie-by-numbers songs that were previously The Wombats' calling card. With the guitars packing a surprising crunch, in another life this could even have been a cut from the latest Bloc Party album.

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The Wombats - Techno Fan

I still can't quite believe I'm about to say this, but I've finally found a Wombats song I really like.

Techno Fan is the fourth single from the band's This Modern Glitch album, and if any song captures that sense of the little wonders in everyday life which the record seeks to pin down, then it's this one. And on a more basic level, it's by far the best track the band have released to date.

From the Pet Shop Boys-esque synth intro to the gloriously quaint and oh so catchy 'ba ba ba' backing vocals in the verses, this is the Wombats at their most 'pop', but also at their most mature. What Techno Fan represents is the band finally taking themselves serious and growing into the shoes they always seemed too small or too silly to occupy.

This time, the band's sound feels genuinely befitting the scale of a track like this, unlike the vast unwieldy nature of the dreary Anti-D.

Previous single Jump Into The Fog showed a glimmer of the potential The Wombats have always been capable of, and now, at long last, they've reached that summit.

Techno Fan is released on the 19th June.