As so often happens when records arrive through the post, I have no idea why I bought this. I’ve never heard of Jim Noir or My Dad Recordings, so I can only assume someone somewhere recommended it to me. Whoever it was, thanks, this is good. Simple songs, pleasantly lo-fi, and, though this could just be my state of mind (I usually start looking forward to Christmas round about the end of August) something slightly festive about it. At any rate, in my rather dark and cold living room with a fast-cooling mug of tea, it warms me right up. You get your money’s worth too, with four full-length songs on a 33rpm that doesn’t sound even remotely awful. I like his voice. Today is off to a good start! (Apart from the threatening letter I got from the library. Don’t lend your card, kids!)

Inventively impractical packaging, and that splatty coloured clear vinyl. On V2, which as an offshoot of Virgin means this is record is worthless, pointless, awful, evil major-label sellout filth. Right kids? Well, no, obviously. There’s imagination and inventiveness here, and a certain something that makes it sort of, err, likeable. You can tell this has been worked on long and hard: someone takes their music seriously without taking themselves seriously. I like it, especially the B-side, and especially that last chord.

Pleasantness seems to be today’s word. This reminds me, oddly, of the kind of thing I remember my mother listening to on Radio 2 when I was a child. The B-side is boring, but I like the sleeve, and it’s nice to see the artist credited.

I don’t like swearing in records, films, or television programmes. There are exceptions of course, Piss Up a Rope or Pulp Fiction wouldn’t work without piles of foul language, but usually it’s just rubbish. Do people think we’ll be shocked? Challenged? I don’t take some kind of swearing hardline, I only object to lazy swearing; a waste of a good profanity when stopping to think of a better word would most likely result in better work. This record has pointless swearing, dull guitar playing, and not an awful lot else. The B-side sounds a bit like the kind of thing Julian Cope did after he stopped making good records but before he lost it altogether. (Somewhere between Jehovakill and Brain Donor, but not counting all that Elizabeth II nonsense.)

Good name, and I believe The Kids like them. I’m now so old and out of touch that I tend not to get along with The Next Big Things. Indeed, the appeal of most of the recent NME poster children perplexes me. This sounds to my ear like middling, quite unremarkable indie. The B-side is better, with rumbling drums and a bit more edge. Yeah, the b-side’s okay, despite being called Heavy Metal. Is heavy metal still going?.

Sounding not unlike the B-side to the last single, but with more stupid 80s styled singing. Not overly keen on this here and now, but it probably works a lot better live, or played loud in a small sweaty room packed full of thin people with their hair in their eyes