Born Ruffians - Red, Yellow And Blue

This sophomore effort from the Canadian scruff-rockers kicks off like some improbable mix of This Town Needs Guns and Art Brut, before vocalist Luke LaLonde ambles in like a sheepish choirboy late for his rehearsal, harmonising about flags for his fictitious country. Sounds odd? Well, that’ll prepare you for the other thirty-seven minutes of ‘Red, White And Blue’ then. Mixing Vampire Weekend’s beats, the hesitancy of Pavement and sounding like they’ve just got out of bed like Clap Your Hands Say Yeah, Born Ruffians are carrying on a fine tradition with this album, which contains a decent haul of potential singles.

Standouts include ‘Hummingbird’ (you may have heard this on a recent advert for Orange), the spasmodic ‘Badonkadonkey’ and strongest track ‘In A Mirror’, but in reality any of ‘Red, White And Blue’’s eleven tracks could be taken as standalone singles. That’s not to say that in the context of the album the formula does not start to tire – by tracks four and five, there’s already a sense of déjà vu – but often Born Ruffians redeem themselves with “plenty of hootin’ and hollerin’”, as they put it, and some impressive drumming from Steve Hamelin.