The Luka State
Album: The Price Of Education
Label: P&C Project
Tracks: 7
Website: http://www.thelukastate.com

To read certain sections of the music press - online and offline, generated by fans or professionals - you could be forgiven for thinking new releases fell into one of just two categories: the world beating-ly brilliant, or the mind-meltingly awful. Too many records are proclaimed as awesome or awful, when the truth of course is that most inhabit a kind of no man's land between the quality trenches.

The reason for such extremity of course is that it's far less challenging to write with unbridled love or loathing than it is to articulate more neutral emotional responses.

And so it is with this amiable first offering from The Luka State. There's absolutely nothing wrong - and a great deal that is very right - with it, but it won't change your life for better or worse.

They're young, they come from Cheshire, they're pretty big on YouTube and 6Music has a thing for them, so things are looking good for TLS and they may yet deliver on all this early promise.

Their songs are meaty, beaty and have plenty of bounce. Unafraid of the guitar riff - Hangin' Around is a monster - they know how to get fists thumping the air, but they can also find the back seat and Bring This All Together closes the seven track mini-album with a stone soul arms-outstretched indie jangle. Current single Can't Help Myself tries a little too hard to please for its own good, with a dancefloor-friendly bassline and over-wrought croon, but the up-and-at-'em rush of The Believer and the chunky attack of Feed Your Soul are far more satisfying.

Time was when bands could make a start and grow at their own pace supported by a record company that actually wanted them to succeed in time. Maybe that's how it'll pan out for The Luka State. I hope so.

Nick Churchill
www.thegranvillechambers.co.uk