The Morning After Girls - High Skies (Best Before)
UK release date: 13 March 2006
Names can be deceptive. If you came across a band called The Morning After Girls, you'd imagine an all-female group, maybe donning jangly guitars and practicising close harmonies. If you did, you'd be utterly wrong.
Despite opening up almost exactly like Wake Me Up by Girls Aloud, The Morning After Girls are actually an Australian quintet heavily indebted to both The Vines and Black Rebel Motorcycle Club. Distorted guitars and screamed vocals are the order of the day, and in High Skies, they produce an absolutely fantastic racket. Lead singer Martin B. Sleeman does rather dip into his Craig Nicholls routine on the chorus, but that doesn't stop it from being a superbly grimy slab of rock.
Of the other tracks, All Mine is even better, like Boo Radleys at their most dark while , although overdoing it on the drone factor, shows a nicely understated side to the band. On this evidence, the The Morning After Girls aren't the type to love us and leave us - they're here for the long haul.