Cut Off Your Hands - You & I

Rating:

* * * *

The problem with writing a song like

Oh Girl

, easily Cut Off Your Hands' best-known song, is that it inevitably ends up sounding more like tinnitus ringing in your ears than a catchy tune. Lucky, then, that the Auckland quartet's debut has plenty of other seductive and noisy pop rock tunes fit for the dance floor to choose from.

Since releasing two EPs in the last two years the now London-based band have grown up and so not only are there fewer songs about girls, there's also a refined and propulsive energy to the music.

The album was produced and recorded with Bernard Butler, the former Suede guitarist who also did much of the work on Duffy's

Rockferry

album, and

Happy As Can Be

has his striking, yet slightly obscure, style stamped on it. While it's different to the song

Rockferry

, it has a similar continuous ebb, rather than a verse-chorus-verse approach, and both make moving album openers.

However, Butler doesn't take over. Older songs like

Expectations, Still Fond,

and the rapturous

Closed Eyes

, are angular and breathy beauties in keeping with COYH's beginnings. Then there's

Turn Cold

and

Let's Get Out Of Here

which are jaunty, melodic, and often rebellious accompaniments.

These hip-swaying thigh-slappers are broken up by the serenade of

Heartbreak

and reflective moments like I

n the Name of Jesus Christ

(a deliciously deadpan account of singer Nick Johnston's church congregation when he was growing up).  Although his spoken word wanderings on the latter and

Someone Like Daniel

are a little clumsy, there's no faulting his dynamic and spirited voice. The lad can sing (and it's not just because he wears skinny jeans).

You & I

is the most enjoyable and fun New Zealand album since the Mint Chicks'

Crazy?Yes!Dumb?No!

.

Scott Kara