Worrying fact: find this on HMV’s website and they’ll recommend that you also purchase the latest single from Dogs. Makes you wonder if the commercial powers that be have ever heard Youthmovie Soundtrack Strategies for themselves, or if they’ve simply picked up the vibes coming their way from the more turned on and tuned in corners of the press (hello, us. Yes, we do blow our own once in a while) and decided they’re hip ‘n’ young enough to slot in alongside whatever’s hot in the you-know-what this week. Yeah, makes me wonder alright, ‘cause YMSS sound like absolutely bugger-all else out there.

‘Ores’ is the fantastic proof: a mind-blowing concoction of rampant riffs, sombre breakdowns, happy-hardcore handclaps and throbbing Moog. It’s four songs in four minutes and more wildly creative than anything any the aforementioned ‘recommended’ outfit could produce given ten years solitude and a budget bigger than Microsoft’s post-tax yearly profits. It’s full of as much joy and playfulness as it is sorrow and weariness. As lead vocalist Andrew Mears sighs something about firing upon enemy ships, leaving flotsam burning in a beauteous sea, one can’t help but be sucked into the graphic imagery only to be spat out once those pulsating keys come punching in. Then there’s the a cappella break in proceedings, and those handclaps… insanely brilliant and utterly addictive. 'Ores' has everything.

Dogs? Forget about it. No band in the world comes close to matching YMSS’s thirst for the deranged; nobody can hold a torch to their genre-splicing glory. Prefixes come and go in YMSS’s world – post, prog, whatever – but none stick. Only one, simple word can successfully clamp itself to this eight-legged beast of a band as it sprints into previously unexplored musical territories: brilliant.

Single of the year, no contest.