Getaway

Like Ocean Colour Scene and Paul Weller, Reef doubtless make for great festival fodder.

Their workmanlike brand of heads-down boogie-metal (as exemplified by their best known number 'Place Your Hands') is always guaranteed to get bodies moving and heads popping.

But listening to an entire album from the West Country retro-rockers has always been something of an endurance test and this one is no exception.

The opener and current single 'Set The Record Straight' is not all that bad, boasting as it does an engagingly catchy chorus while the title track 'Getaway' blends the rhythm from ELO's 'Mr Blue Sky' with a suitably mindless and cack-handed lyric. *You can take a chance in the South of France*. Cranked-up seventies dirges like 'Solid', 'Superhero' and 'Hold On' become wearyingly indistinguishable from each other and it's only when they take their feet off the pedal that they become a mite more interesting.

The country-ish ballad 'All I Want To' comes as a genuinely welcome respite from the riffola that is much of this record, while the similarly slow burning 'Levels', which courts Red Hot Chilli Peppers territory, is a tad more anthemic.

Plenty of perspiration then and not much inspiration; at least they'll score a slot on Chris Evans' show.