The Upper Room - 'Album Sampler' (Sony BMG) Released 01/08/05

What’s the point of bands releasing an album sampler? Is their album really that bad? Or do they worry about their fans falling asleep waiting for the guitar solo in track 7 to finish?

Such questions should be posed to Brighton’s The Upper Room, whose album sampler clocks in at a mere 5 tracks, each one slicing a dash of shy indie-pop pie and pepping it up with cellos pinched from a Britpop ballad.

Lyrically and vocally, this is what Billy Bragg would sound like if he didn’t take such pains to sound Working Class, or Morrissey sung by someone with a lesser sense of self-importance. It’s simply, charming and funny, with the added merits of the band singing the word “pain” seven times in a row without sounding like Korn on ‘Black and White’ and that listening to it is rather like wrapping yourself in a blanket and ignoring the existence of the current music scene.

The Upper Room are not going to cut any edges but on the basis of this sampler, the boys should come out of the shadows and hand over the rest of the album.

(Oh, and just so you know, the guitar solo’s in the nicely Gene-esque ‘All Over This Town’ and is a well-moderated 10 seconds long.)