Trains, Boats And Planes

The Frank And Walters are shiny happy people. They sing in short sparkling couplets. Their three piece suite is in the shed and they think songs get baked. They are manic and quite mad and I love them.

These Leeside darlings of the music press have thrown themselves to the critical lion's den with not even a glance in the direction of attitude and they've come up grinning. Now that Paul Heaton's cough has been irretrievably softened in the comfortable confines of The Beautiful South, the field is clear for an outfit operating at a slight tilt to the rest of the world to corner the market in delirious pop ditties and wry observations on life and anything else that grabs their attention.

'Trains, Boats And Planes' is a funny album. So funny that it makes you laugh out loud and urges you to share their dandy rhythms with the woman wilting next to you on the bus. A decent dose of The Frank And Walters might be just the ticket to transform her solemn countenance into an animated part of her anatomy again.

These are songs that are foot-tapping for the dancer, finger-clicking for the percussionist and simply wonderful for the non-musical idiot-savants like myself who don't know their ankle from their elbow.

The opening single, 'This Is Not A Song' sets the tone for what follows with a self-deprecating but sly tune that pretends not to be one. At times it echoes The Manic Street Preachers, all humalong guitars and pounding percussion. A percussion that could've risen from the Cork equivalent of The Artane Boys' Band with its definite and finite strokes, perfectly attuned to its 'what you hear is what you get' lyrics.

As for the rest – what needs to be said? With an average length of 31/2 minutes each, Linehan, Linehan and Keating have embraced the fundamentals of songwriting with an enviable ease that many an indie pretender to well to observe closely.

Songs about trains, trips and true love. The stuff of many a spotted youth's dreams. Thing is, 'tis the stuff of everyone else's dreams too.

The Frank And Walters – daydream believers. Welcome to their pleasure dome.