Fuck sake lads, you’re from Merthyr Tydfil, not the Mid West. You are not Lostprophets, either; we’ve one of those already. So your point is…?

The Blackout are a box-ticking beat combo: six men with haircuts probably more expensive than their shoes, playing the kind of pop-hooked rock music that passes for emo nowadays. It’s entirely unlikely that one of The Blackout’s members possesses a Jets To Brazil album. It’s entirely probable, though, that they saw Funeral For A Friend once and figured, “If those fakers can get away with this shit, us suckers can too, and what’s more, some label is bound to buy into it, even if the scene’s turning to dog shit about us, and the kids are rebelling, dismissing us sappy tykes in favour of bands that rock properly, you know, bands that do not sound eight years out of date before they’re released a debut album”.

‘The Beijing Cocktail’ is, basically, the kind of pointless, spent-force, flatline-ambition noise that really doesn’t warrant a revi…