Magic Numbers The Magic Numbers

This kind of meteoric success is so often fuelled by a media machine - some trendy Hoxton-based magazine proclaims you this year's big thing and before you know it your bigger and cooler than a snowball formed by rolling Isaac Hayes down the side of a Himalaya. Then, twelve months later, you're a forgotten, unlistened to album in the CD racks of every household. So, does Ealing's favourite "brother-sister/brother-sister" quartet deserve its ubiquity, plaudits, and Mercury nomination?

You already know the sound: the sixties-style guitar pop, the Mamas and the Papas harmonies. Singles Forever Lost and Love Me Like You, have become fixtures of mainstream and indie radio and MP3 players across the land, and the twelve songs on their debut follow very much in the same vein. Some lovelorn ballads, some down-tempo serenades, and a couple more tracks begging to be singles complete the set.

If you like the singles, you won't be disappointed by The Magic Numbers, but you won't be astounded either. While live, the joyous, uplifting tunes and harmonies have the ability to mask the deficiencies in some of the songs, recorded, the tracks fail to progress and the limitations in topic and lyrics lead to repetition. It's not bad and it's not unforgivable, but by the end of the album I feel a little like, for the last forty minutes or so, a small child has hit me repeatedly with a Care Bear pillowcase filled with Lovehearts.

At the end of the (gloriously sunny) day, they're a lovely band with a couple of great and some other cute songs, which individually can bring a ray of sunshine to the grimmest day. This album won't change your life; it's a delightful oddity of the present guitar revival, which stands to remind us all that proper music with artistic intent doesn't all have to be about rainy days on a council estate. And despite my reservations this time, I reckon they've the potential to deliver winner next time round.