Mojo - 747s, Zampanò

What a thoroughly modern group 747s are. Pan-European, they busked around the Continent until their many influences (jazz, indie, reggae, soul, punk, show tunes, Fellini) gelled into a sound which pinballs between a Strokesian groove and the '70's music hall romp of Sailor. Befriended by The Kooks and Arctic Monkeys, they borrowed the Sheffield band's producer and bingo, a debut album at once strangely familiar yet ambitious and individual enough to set them well apart from the crowd. Whether skittering away in a new wave race to catch the end of a song (Night & Day, Missed That Sun) indulging in some Zutonesque scallydelic whimsy (Death Of A Star, The Return), or bouncing
along on a rinky-tink piano, 747s lack of boundaries is refreshingly wide-eyed, instantly making "old" hands such as The Libertines redundant.