You can sense that some people are looking on aghast, knowing that there’s nothing they can do to stop this happening. Whatever happened to my rock ‘n’ roll? No matter how pop evolves, it’ll still remain the same. “There are only so many notes! There are only so many chords!” will be the excuse of another thousand Noel Gallagher disciples and Cobain lovechildren. Yet, dotted round the world, are a handful of cackling future pop geniuses who know the limitations set in front of them, and who’ve found old organs in grandparents’ lofts...

If you count last year’s ‘As Long As We Dance We Are Not Dead’ compilation, this is The Robocop Kraus’ fourth album; anti-fashion, anti-bandwagon, yet rather ironically in-keeping with the very ‘80s-into-2003 fashion – dated, yet horribly, horribly now. The Robocop Kraus have probably come manufactured from the same warehouse which concocted Franz Ferdinand and Hot Hot Heat (anyway, they’re just as Inspiral Carpets as they are Robert Smith), while the rest of the music press chases the next Hives. but if this were really the case, they wouldn’t be German, they wouldn’t dress in white, and they certainly wouldn’t wear buckets on their heads. If they had a band, this is what Dr. Bunsen Honeydew and Beaker from ‘The Muppet Show’ would sound like.

These ain’t no bandwagon jumpers. Just cuz The cRapture have been shaking some baggy booty and aforementioned punk funkers have been getting their kicks either from gothic lovecats of Mark E Smith’s vitriol. No no no - the Robos are far more inventive of that. There is the straightforward thud-thud-thud of single ‘Fashion’, f’sure. There are points nearer the end where it meanders slightly and loses its vision. But the awesome fists-in-the-air, Clash-stylings of ‘Fake Boys’ and the uplifting twists of ‘Mario Lanza’ sit head and shoulders above everything, on what is a real addictive, mixed bag of an album. Purchase forthwith.