COMING from a dull seaside town and raging against the monotony and melancholy of everyday English life, it's no wonder The Ordinary Boys are Morrissey's new favourite band.

Their straight-ahead no-frills guitar rock, coupled with singer Preston's barbed lyrics, harks back to the suburban self-portraits of The Jam, The Smiths, Billy Bragg and even The Specials (their gleeful cover of Little Bitch livens up proceedings no end).

Despite lacking the musical and lyrical depths of their obvious heroes they still win you over with their youthful idealism and a clutch of damn good rabble-rousing songs, especially the Bragg-meets-Blur Talk Talk Talk.

The Ordinary Boys can sound a bit, well, ordinary, but on this debut album they show enough fire and self-belief to raise their music above the mundane.

Updated: 08:49 Thursday, July 15, 2004