The opening track Good Old Bill is something of a red herring, shuffling in with a military style drumbeat and a gently strummed acoustic guitar and only really picking up the pace with 30 seconds to go.

X-Ray feels like the start of the album proper and is a better representation of the LP as a whole.

Each subsequent song is played at approximately 100mph (with the exception of the closing Toothpaste Kisses), the band would seem to have spent all their time listening to the de rigeur influences of recent times (Talking Heads, XTC, Wire) and on paper they should be just another disposable British indie band.

In actual fact, Colour It In is a very good record.

A key feature of the LP is frontman Orlando Weeks' well observed lyrics. Weeks states in the band's biography that he writes about what he knows and this seems to have worked out well for him.

About Your Dress finds him telling a tale of a date gone wrong over Rakes-esque backing and features the backhanded romanticism of the line "You stood out like a sore thumb / the most beautiful sore thumb I'd ever seen".

Previously released on ultra-indie label Fierce Panda, Latchmere is possibly the best/only song about a leisure centre ever written ("I came out of the changing room and absolutely nothing had changed") and the childhood reminiscences of Lego are something that most of us can relate to and certainly make a change from the usual rock 'n' roll lyrical subject matter.

The band remains tight throughout with Hugo and Felix White's spiky guitars underpinning Weeks' unmistakably English vocals while the drumming of Robert Dylan Thomas is solid yet interesting.

Prior to spending some time with this album, I was ready to write The Maccabees off as another bunch of bandwagon hoppers. On this occasion, I'm happy to admit that I was wrong and I don't mind if you tell anyone.