Album Review: Sheppard - Watching The Sky

The world can really get you down sometimes so thank goodness there are bands like Brisbane's Sheppard to poke some sunshine through the gloom.

The keen melodic ears of the Sheppard siblings (and their mates) give these songs more substance than the froth that can be found among most of their more puppet-stringed contemporaries. Their camaraderie bursts from every whoop and cheer, with so many sickly sweet highs that it's only a matter of time before queasiness kicks in.

After overdosing on the Sunny Delight in Edge Of The Night (the sound of Saturday Disney hitting the Blue Light Disco) that queasy moment comes at the end of Keep Me Crazy, which finishes with a "Wuh-uh-huh... Hoo!". We're barely halfway through a whopping 13 songs yet there's still much more aural diabetes to come. Even teenage break-up song Live For You is the kind of heartbreak that one gets over with a cartwheel and a trip to Maccas.

Kids need this kind of non-threatening, relentlessly upbeat optimism and they'll lap it up, but Watching The Sky starjumps that fine line between glazed and 100% sugar.