Hefner
The Hefner Brain

Turning away suggestions that they should release quaint album track 'Half A Life' accompanied by a tattoo-filled video suitable for the MTV2 generation like they were offerings of buckets of dry paint, alternative indie heroes Hefner instead bring out 'The Hefner Brain'.

Shunning again what could be an inevitable limelight, and also keeping up what seems to be an ardent and wilful vendetta against their former love the guitar, it features a re-working of another album stomper, 'When The Angels Play Their Drum Machines', in which the angels seem to have deftly added bleepy popping bits to their reportoire, as its lead track.

That is all well and good, but the real highlight here, among slightly lesser gems like sweet piano eulogy 'All I Ever Need', the sparklingly tranquil 'Baggage Reclaim Song' and the trademark, almost uproariously sorrowful 'Can't Help Losing You', is track two: the sleazily sublime 'Dark Hearted Discos'. Set to a spiraling disco beat, and made after they had each ate twenty-five giant glitter balls, it could have re-assured Nietzsche at any of his highest points of latter life madness and despair that there was still something for him to live for, whilst simultaneously inspiring him to spin, twirl and pirouette like Torvil and Dean before taking up a new career as a late nineteenth century Micheal Jackson.

A truly excellent supplement to last year's splendid 'Dead Media' album from the new pasty cats of Electronica.