(Wall of Sound)

Album number two from swaggering Londoners

A tough one, this. I found the singles that these extroverted hi-tech, laddish indie-rock pouters released off the back of their first album We Are Not The Infadels both flashy and boring – not a good mix. So I was prepared to dislike this record intensely. And while I haven’t exactly become a convert to the cause of The Infadels, new album Universe In Reverse is a great deal more likeable than I imagined. True, their state-of-the-art Hard-Fi glammy dance rock stomp can still irritate, and titles like Free Things For Poor People and Chemical Girlfriend could have come from the imagination of JD Fortune-era INXS, but there is also a definite artfulness to much of the record. Producer Youth gives the songs a glistening, ever-moving urgency, so that even some of the more uninspired 4/4 pounders have a rocking, clubby backbone. It’s music brimming with head-out-of-a-moving-car euphoria, up for a night of mischief, yet still in touch with its inner Duran Duran and U2.

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MATT THROWER

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