Seems like only yesterday that an EP dropped through the door from these chaps called, TO BUY A GUN. It was special, one I did not have to throw straight out of the window onto the M53 while driving to Liverpool. So it’s been a while waiting for this album to drop, but drop it has, like a V2 Schneider from a great height. Nothing is forever, nothing is expected, everything is achievable in the here and now! They mix electronica - does anyone know what the f**k that was, where it went and who really gave a f**k (answers on a postcard…). This is Emo but with a beats twist, like The Cure, hanging with Marilyn - no, not that one, the scary one. But also throw some Joy Division shapes and add in some sweet sticky melodic pop overtones, oh yeah, and some Deftones.

You see sometimes we get too analytical for our own good, you just want to know if it’s any f***ing good and if it’s worth a tenner down the local store. The answer is a resounding YES! From quite opener Losing Colo’ through the melodic genius of Open Register, into orchestral switch island that sways with a passion in cinematic Les Lumieres. The boys who are the Pilot like to expand the scene with instrumentals that are a landscape vision for iconic movies you will never see outside of your head. Are you following this? If not, don’t worry you don’t need to, and if you are, you’re a liar…

Any band that performs a song called Spark Plug is good enough for me, especially one that is this good. Bizarre, in the implosive sense, title track Strange We Should Meet Here is all open space, free to roam, like Moby should be, but never quite made it. By the time you get to closing track Lucid, that’s so good you really need to hear it, you will be completely sold on this being the greatest record of the year. I don’t know what radio station will play this, but I do know that mp3 players will be the perfect home, and the radio inside your head will house at least one track from this record. Expect great things from Idiot Pilot from here on in; they are today’s favourite band; and for now, they matter!

Jj – 2006.