Twisted Wheel
Album: Do It Again
Label: Twisted Wheel
Tracks: 12
Website: http://www.thetwistedwheel.co.uk

Time was when great things were expected of Twisted Wheel, but it takes more than a few high profile support slots and a couple of gobby interviews in the music press for a Manchester indie band to properly make it these days (just ask The Courteeners).

So, having been through the mill at Columbia, they re-emerge bloodied but unbeaten with a wholly more modest dance stance and a set of songs that makes a decent fist of pushing the band beyond their influences.

That said, the spirit of The Jam, The Libertines, The Who and The Damned are never far away (UK Blues could have been the b-side to New Rose), although in softer moments (Merry Go Round) they invoke fellow Manc wayfarers Alfie and they spill their old school R&B guts in honour of lost Scouse beat band The Stairs on Honey Girl. Bored, on the other hand, suggests full familiarity with the songwriting style and pre-occupations of both Alex Turner and Jonathan Richman - tidy combination that.

Whether or not Twisted Wheel ever escape the long shadow cast by countless others whose life from a window chronicles have defined a certain style of defiant melancholia that has characterised classic English songwriting for nearly 50 years remains to be seen - but I think we could guess.

Sorry boys, Do It Again is a highly commendable try, but as diverting as much of this is, it only sends me hurtling back to half a century of old favourites.

Nick Churchill
www.thegranvillechambers.co.uk