Back Numbers - Dean And Britta

No, I haven't branched out into making records (hello to the three or four of you who will get that joke); Dean and Britta are former Luna head schizz Dean Wareham and former Luna bassist Britta Phillips who actually got married during the making of this, their second album. As an interesting side note, Britta was the singing voice of the cartoon character Jem, of Jem and the Holograms fame. How's that for coolness, huh?

The first starting point that EVERYONE will lead you to is Lee Hazlewood & Nancy Sinatra. And lets be fair about it folks, that's a decent place to come from, with indeed the feeling throughout the album that if Lee and Nancy time-travelled to 2007 to make a record they'd probably come up with something not a million miles away from Back Numbers. As if to reference the point, one of the standout tracks on the album is a cover of the old Lee Hazlewood tune You Turned My Head Around, which ok wasn't a duet with Nancy Sinatra but you get the idea.

The song highlights just how good a singer Britta can be, and its her dreamy vocals that most seduce you on the album and combined with the 60's tinged pop sound the end result is something quite special indeed.

There's other covers on there as well with a take on Donovan's Teen Angel also being particularly good. These sit nicely in with the originals, with The Sun Is Still Sunny and Words You Used To Say being highlights.

In the final analysis pretty much everything is a highlight. It won't be to everyone's taste, but that's only to be expected from a record that is as fantastic as this one without being tailored to the lowest common denominator marketing wise.

If you fancy something packed with acoustic guitars, orchestration, and bubbling synths with a tinge of 60's Phil Spector style pop thrown in for good measure then you have to go out and buy this record. It's quite unlike anything else you are likely to hear this year and so far has to be right up there as one of the best albums of the year.