My Captain Any Other City ***

For all the Irish music scene's diversity and innovation, there are still bands like New Amusement: four 20-somethings who supply straightforward guitar pop – The Stunning of their generation, perhaps. Having impressed many with 2008's mini-album Any Port in a Storm, the Dubliners' full- length debut is a sturdy if perhaps slightly overlong calling card proper. There's a thick current of 1980s indie here, not least owing to Brian Molloy's Bernard Sumner-esque vocals. Then again, tunes loaded with a fuzz-glazed energy and bright, sunny guitar lines ( Jamboree, Friction)sound as contemporary as they come. Yet there are also several missteps: the protracted Tight Linesis comparatively dreary alongside the bouncy skitter of Gone to Sea. New Amusement may not be pioneers, but there's a place for reliability in anyone's record collection. See newamusement.com

Download tracks: In Patient Flight, Fiction