New Young Pony Club - Fantastic Playroom

Tracks like the reworked opener Get Lucky invariably begin starkly with Andy Spence's Stranglers-style guitar riffing, before the impossibly pretty Lou drenches the last minute in luscious synths, adding emotion and the odd dash of warmth.

On Ice Cream, Tahita offers to 'give us what we want' as some kind of excellent sex threat (we wish) and, both the superb Jerk Me and the minimalist funk of Hiding On The Staircase, have Top 10 written all over them.

In fact, additional props go to Spence and Bulmer for having the nous to pace this album and it's songs so brilliantly, slowing things to a funky canter midway through.

The Bomb though is Fantastic Playroom's primus inter pares (first among equals). With it's stuttered vocals, Igor's throbbing bassline and the swoonsome Sarah's pounding beat, this is classic NYPC in full flight as self confessed 'synths band with guitars'.

Played live, the Bomb is a fail-safe winner-over of crowds, and we dare you not dance if the firm but foxy Tahita tells you to.

Fantastic Playroom is a record for the club, the bedroom or the beach and New Young Pony Club are the best looking, best dressed, most savvy synth-pop band in Britain bar none.

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