Black City

Division Of Laura Lee are the latest Swedish band to come out guitars blazing with the à la mode influences and attitude of The Strokes and labelmates The Hives. With the downbeat vocal style of the former and the rough energy of the latter, they’re ploughing a very timely furrow, although these guys have been around since ‘97.

They’re oft-described as a punked-up Primal Scream, and that comes across, most notably on the Stones-y percussion of the blissed-out ‘I Guess I’m Healed’, while there’s a definite Joy Division vibe elsewhere – the guitars heavy-handed, dirty layers of sustained noise that sound like they’re coming through on some dark distorted frequency.

Derivative or not, this is a powerful statement of intent.