Calling all Coldplay fans, here's some simpering, middle-of-the-road bilge to see you through to the Devon whiners' next dull offering.
Although the wonderfully named Guillemots don't have quite the same tendency towards po-faced introspection as Mr Paltrow & Co, they do trade in similarly breathy, epic songs that stir interest at the first listen, but very quickly wear one down with their worthiness.
Band leader Fyfe Dangerfield - surely a contender to inherit Roy Wood's suburban guru crown - is no stranger to the up-its-own-rear-end music scene, having fronted a number of similarly verbose and arch art-pop bands before forming the Guillemots.
Their Mercury Music Prize- nominated debut (it lost) is full of the sort of pastoral nuances you'd expect from a band that lists its influences on its MySpace page as 'BIRDSONG first and foremost'.
Made Up Lovesong sounds like something Neil Hannon would have left out of his last Divine Comedy yawn-along, while Redwings (more bird references) is all moody strings and strained vocals with a dragged-out, beaten-up outro that doesn't so much leave you wanting more as leave you wanting blood - Dangerfield's blood.
There are some mitigating aspects: there's a lot of brass, which is always nice (except in the aforementioned Redwings, where it just sounds like a colliery town's oompah band), and the strings arrangements are, admittedly, quite moving.
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