Album Review: Mystery Jets - Radlands

Radlands is Mystery Jets Star Spangled album, the record homage to their time spent recording in Austin, Texas with Hot Chip/Franz Ferdinand producer Dan Carey. Titled after their Colorado River-resting studio, Radlands holds onto all those delicious English indie-pop quirks that have always made the band's songs so instantly warm and likeable, but brought with it are moodscapes created from a sense of longing, wonder and their journeys down many a dusty road.

The Eel Pie Island pack have always known how to bend a song to create something unique. On Radlands they've continued to do this, but have done so with an ear firmly entrenched in roadside America. You Had Me At Hello sounds like The Eagles in bed with Mamas & The Papas while Greatest Hits has a bit of Steve Miller Band moving in the background that's impossible to avoid. Everything is familiar but nothing feels old. It's post-pop with a burning folk exterior and it sounds utterly magical. Throughout the middle chunk of the record you'll find glam, blues and soul all holding hands, while the back end of the album holds a few torchbearers that would serenade the coldest of hearts. And as for the paranoid protopunk waves of first single Someone Purer, it could be the best five minutes of music the Jets have ever written, the track slowly winning you over before celebrating right beside you like your new best friend.

Although the album isn't as bad arse as a cereal bowl of bullets would have you believe, Mystery Jets have stretched their wings, got some scuff marks on their boots and simply delivered.