Fine Lines

If youth was once wasted on the young, what about record contracts? My Vitriol are yet another set of early twenty-somethings touting guitars and being thrust into the limelight at a ridiculously early stage - their tenth ever gig was part of the NME awards- week at London-s Astoria.

From the name downwards, MV would love to be seen as spiky and anxious, a thorn in the side of the press (one of the album-s smattering of instrumental breaks is a spitting little piece called 'Critic Orientated Rock-) and the music business as a whole.

And as such, their debut album is well alright. Each track passes in a blur of guitars and big choruses, pleasant enough entries into the indie rock songbook but nothing worth getting hugely excited about. On the other hand, there are moments that produce the odd tingle, sparks that show that this could be a story well worth following.

There is a restrained emotion to them that many of their contemporaries lack, sadly buried as Som Wardner-s vocals sit a little too low in the mix but surfacing on the likes of 'Cemented Shoes- and 'Tongue Tied- and they have the nerve to bend - if not break - some of the rules (how many albums these days open with an instrumental?)

For a lot of the time Finelines is indistinguishable from the likes of Feeder and Ash, which for many will do just fine. Others though, should step back, give My Vitriol room to breathe and await the next instalment with keen interest.