Five O’Clock Heroes - Alice

While the new fame of Five O’ Clock Heroes slows to a crawl, the band have a chance to showcase their own musical merit without the need of famous friends. Which makes ‘Alice’ a very bizarre choice of single, considering that it treads nothing but well-worn twee ground.

It doesn’t really do much wrong musically, with inoffensive guitars and cymbal crashes in all the right places, but that doesn’t excuse it from being as dull as a Kook on stage. Lyrically, however, it’s absolutely horrid, with lines like ‘I’ll leave it up to you / Just remember I’ll always tell you the truth’. Placing yourself somewhere between The Beautiful South and Westlife probably just shows their need to bask in the top 40.

The band seem to be inventing new gimmicks to force themselves into the limelight (the video apparently broke MySpace records), but most music fans should be able to spot this a mile off; an inoffensive, Radio 2 friendly grab at attention. Do the right thing and pretend it doesn’t exist.