We've been waiting to get out hands on this for a while, ever since their promising opening set at this year's Summer Sonic and to make this fair on them I'm going to try to get to the end of this review without mentioning The S***kes or singer Johnny Borrell's old London bandmates The L****tines.

Which makes things difficult because this music is very much of its time and place (whether that time and place is turn-of-the-century London or mid 1970s New York is a matter of much debate for which this is not the appropriate forum). The songs here are all skilfully constructed with all the stops and starts in the right place and the call and response vocals recalling enough The Clash to deflect accusations of being too New York-centric. Every one of the six songs on this Japanese EP from the awesome "Rock'n'Roll Lies" through the Patti-Smith tribute "In The City" to the Clash/Specials white-boy ska of "Yes, You Should Know" is a sturdy guaranteed dance-floor filler but for now at least it just sounds a bit too calculated.

The criticisms levelled at them at Summer Sonic are still valid. Their personality and identity is still choked by their influences, their musicianship, production and arrangement are efficient but unspectacular, Borrell is a classic sexy, self-mythologising frontman but he needs a counterpoint, someone to bounce off of, a Graham to his Damon, a Mick to his Joe, a Pete to his Carl (sorry). And while we're on it Johnny, lose that "I Hate The New Rock Revolution" T-shirt, if you feel that strongly about it then we're still waiting for your electro-surf kraut-metal collaboration with Eye and Hilah from The Boredoms.

But let's be positive here. Here are six fantastic songs from a band who are no longer just promising but actually building on that promise. An album's worth of songs of this quality would put them right up with the New Rock Royalty which they profess to loathe but under whose influence their music undoubtedly remains. A little less self-consciousness now and a clearer sense of their own direction is needed before the big push. -Ian Martin, Dec.11.03

Razorlight!