Take some matching ties and uniforms, some incredibly dodgy haircuts, a bit of Eagles Of Death Metal, Green Day and Kaiser Chiefs, throw in a pair of twins and what do you get? Well, I'm not quite sure really...

At the tail end of last year most of the music rags doing the rounds were all wetting their knickers about this band called Baddies who, after going down a storm at In The City in Manchester, a string of blisteringly shit hot live gigs throughout the year and topping the MTV2/MySpace chart with basically zero promotion, were going to be the next BIG THING to sell more copies of their magazines to the general public. Having seen them live first hand I can vouch for the fact that yes, they are an incredible live whirlwind of a band not letting up for one single minute. However, sometimes being a brilliant live band does not always translate well onto a studio recording. So does the debut album from Baddies live up to the hype surrounding them? Well therein lies the first nadir. Since the beginning of this year the hype machine seems to have stopped working because as far as I can see, the arrival of this album has been met with all the fanfare of a damp fart. But anyway, that's enough about flatulence.

So onto the album itself. Opener "Tiffany... I'm Sorry" get's things going and pretty much represents everything that is to come. No bad thing that though. This is essentially a pretty damn good collection of short, fast punk/pop songs that you can actually have a bit of a dance to. Former single "Battleships" could infact be a leftover QOTSA track which has been mislaid by Josh Homme, "Holler For My Holiday" is surely a Futureheads song in disguise, "At The Party" must be White Lies new single and "We Beat Our Chests" is nothing short of Duran Duran. If there is one criticism of the album as a whole it's that Baddies do not seem to be quite sure who or what they are yet. But that's to be expected. It is after all their first album. Remember the days before the Arctic Monkeys where you didn't have to get to number one and sell out Wembley Stadium for a week with your first ultra limited edition vinyl pressing to retain your record deal? Many great bands do not make particularly great debuts (think Pablo Honey? think Leisure?). But there's certainly room for greatness in there.

Similar albums: Pure by 3 Colours Red, Rated R by Queens Of The Stone Age, The Futureheads by The Futureheads, The Blue Album by Weezer.

Richard Bull

www.myspace.com/baddies