What took you so long..?

Its been a long time coming, but was it worth the wait?

Today The Courteeners released their debut album, St Jude, and to be honest, I’ve not been this excited for the release of an album in a long time. We’ve seen Liam come from an acoustic troubadour playing dingy venues around Manchester to selling out venues like the Academy and the Ritz and it makes you fucking proud. Manchester hasn’t had a band that crosses the boundaries into pop with such balls out attitude, touching sensitivity and the ability to craft the kind of hooks that other bands would kill for in a long time. Memories of 1994 and definitely maybe swim to the surface of this particular wreckhead’s couldy head….

But misty eyed reminiscences aside, is St Jude any good? The answer to that is yes, and a little no. Its not perfect, but nothing ever is, it has its flaws, some of the new recordings aren’t quite what was expected, the beach boys-esque backing vocals in Bide your time for instance. Having yelled along to the chorus for so long, its going to take a bit of getting used to, and to be honest Stephen Street has over produced some tracks, theyre slightly too polished but these are niggles rather than major downfalls and are greatly outweighed by hearing tracks like the rogueish How Long and the tear jerking Please Don’t finally laid down on record.

Music aside, its frays lyrics that capture a lot of people, the nearest comparison being Alex Turner, but older & wiser with a few more broken hearts on his sleeve. From delicate acoustic tracks, to balls out monsters like the live favourite Fallowfield Hillbilly, the words are there.

It’s a proud moment when you know the whole country (and the world going off the Japanese import "Here Come the Young Men") are going to be lapping up tales of Picadilly Records & wrecked up nights down the Late Room (before it fucking closed), the appeal in this album goes way beyond the filthy streets of Manchester, its international and intercontinental….

Its difficult to separate the Manc from the reviewer, but in all honesty, this is a great pop album, whether you’re new to the band or have been following them for a while, its well worth buying. Even more worth buying is the limited double CD, with some unreleased early versions of tracks like Acrylic and Cavorting alongside some acoustic tracks like the stunning acoustic version of Bide Your Time for an extra few quid.