Free Diamonds - There Should Be More Dancing

Free Diamonds’ sound is big, fat, glistening and shiny. But unlike diamonds I’m not sure they're very valuable.

Plying the current vogue of dance-rock, Free Diamonds may jitter their guitars like Franz Ferdinand but at their heart they want to be McLusky. In a weird way this is maybe what the Cars would have sounded like if they had been Public Image Limited. It sure sounds interesting but the end result is more of a car crash than anything else.

It is a difficult mix between urgent yelping and new-wave guitars that sometimes works as on the frantic Modern Day Pirates but other times just bores as on the dull The Day We Conquered.

Truth be told it is the knowing hoarse squeaking that ruins a lot of these songs, tunes that have melodies and hooks but are just made redundant by crappy vocal work. Yet maybe I'm too steadfast in my ways to appreciate off-kilter sounds and awkward singing.

Perhaps, but perhaps this is also pretty lame stuff.

Out now on Deep Elm.