Progressive rock isn't bad for you kids, honest.
Take new dinosaur-lovers on the block Pure Reason Revolution for instance. On first glance, you'd be hard pressed not to expect something conjured up in a fashion student's kitchen while 'Hot Fuss' and 'Silent Alarm' alternate on repeat play for inspiration. Yup, it's all mullets, fashionable stripey tops and suit jackets round their way.

Except when they do actually strike up a chord - one of many that literally punctuates and alters the course of every song at least four times - you can't help but feel you're actually witnessing the rebirth of something your dad probably spent his formative years rebelling against. Yes is bad. ELP? You need it old man, because make no mistake about it, Pure Reason Revolution are hellbent on making long winded statements about nothing in particular fashionable again and in keyboard wizard-cum-chanteuse Chloe Alper they have in their armoury the potential pin-up to grace its scene. You have been warned...Were they any good? Yes, in a way, although I'm sure your folks wouldn't quite understand...

Sometimes a change is as good as a rest. Or in the case of Danish quintet Mew, more like something of a re-invention. Gone are the clean-cut, fresh faced, ever-so-fey troupe who blew OK Go back home with their tails between their legs two years ago. Instead, what we have is the sight of five guys who seem to have spent the last couple of summers hanging out with Turbonegro and buying their clothes from Bikers-R-Us - or whatever Copenhagen's thrift store for greased up Hell's Angels calls itself, because make no mistake about it folks, Mew are here to rock.

With a new album on the way very soon, it becomes quite clear that their confidence levels can only be matched by the decibels emanating from the extra large speaker stacks, and if the opening thunderbolts of 'Shelter' and 'Swanky' are anything to go by, 'Mew And The Glass Kites' looks set to be one of the surprise headbanging albums of the year.

Of course underneath the exterior of hair and sweat still lies the childlike hush of vocalist Jonas Bjerre, and when he utters the immortal line "Farah, now that we're here..." it's like a sugar frosted dagger straight to the heart. My blood felt like it had melted, in any case, and as the delightful charms of 'Eight Flew Over, One Was Destroyed' and 'She Came Home For Christmas' follow suit in almost equivocative fashion, it almost feels like what you're seeing and what you're hearing are coming from two entirely different beings.

Omnipresent throughout of course is the elaborate filmshow, which features the wrinkled features of Dinosaur Jr's J. Mascis at one point - guest vocalist on the mournful newie 'Why Are You Looking Grave?', but when the animal orchestra finally arrives for a celebratory climax of 'Comforting Sounds', I swear grown men are crying into their beers and girlfriends' laps around me.

As much an anticipated return as that of the prodigal son, Mew disprove any theory that their elegant singalong post-rock can be washed away by the tides of trendsetting. Instead, it was more like a religious gathering awaiting the second coming, and boy did those Danes prove themselves to be greater than any preconceived ideas of some spiritual resurrection.