The Boyfriends release their self-titled debut album on October 2nd through Boobytrap Records. Their third single, "Once Upon A Time", will be released on September 25th.

Track by track guide by Martin Wallace:

BRAVE LITTLE SOLDIERS
I've always admired people who, despite the very worst that life can fling at them, can continue to function to a reasonably successful degree. Some years ago I found myself in regular written correspondence with Cynthia Payne, who I feel is one such person and this song is about those who manage to keep their chin up in trying circumstances.

SPEAK LESS AND LISTEN
I wrote this after one too many conversations with the loose-tongued blabbermouths that you're unfortunately never very far away from in London. I can talk the hind legs of a giraffe in the right company but can't abide those who suffer from conversational dysentery with people they've only just met.

BRITISH SUMMER TIME
I like to see young people enjoying themselves as long as they don't do it too near where I'm standing and I find that parks are one of the best places to observe such goings on at a safe distance. I wrote this song sat in Regent's Park one sunny afternoon and simply made a note of everything I saw.

A FEARLESS HEART
I've often thought that, even when ending up with a poor return on a sizeable emotional investment, reassurance of your own capacity for romantic feeling is strangely a reward in itself.

REMEMBER
This song is about how affection can transcent physical proximity. Some of the people I'm most fond of are ones I've not seen or heard from in years.

ADULT ACNE
It was written at a time when I found it impossible to get a first glance from anyone, let alone a second. It felt like I might as well have contracted leprosy for all the success I was having socially but I think that many people go through periods where they feel condemned to a lifetime of microwave dinners for one.

ONCE UPON A TIME
This is about how difficult it sometimes is to leave people behind, however necessary it might be.

WONDERS NEVER CEASE
This is a song about people who make their own entertainment. Shortly after it was written I happened to see a woman who bore a startling resemblance to an elderly Elizabeth Taylor shuffling down a street in London and another who was a dead ringer for Eileen Atkins on a train in Germany, which I suppose must be life imitating art imitating life.

NO TOMORROW
As we all know, the world can be a brutal and unpleasant place at times but I feel that, tempting though it undoubtedly is to lock yourself away and generally hide from life, it's important for people to go and find that out for themselves.

I LOVE YOU
When this was released as a single I said that I felt it was the most important British pop record in years because it said something that too many people are afraid to say in a way they're too afraid to say it, and I still stand by that totally. As a first single it was a very bold statement. People have searched it for irony but there isn't a shred of it in there.

THERE IS ALWAYS HOPE
I walked down Charing Cross Road one afternoon and passed the display window of St Martin's College, which was empty but for the words THERE IS ALWAYS HOPE in black text on a white backdrop and it struck me how four simple words like these could be so powerful.

THE BOYFRIENDS: A POTTED HISTORY

"The Boyfriends warmed people's heart... the first band in the former new band tent would have been appreciated by Peel himself"
- The Independent on The Boyfriends' Glastonbury appearance

"The Boyfriends are one of those all-too uncommon groups who really matter."
- NME

The Boyfriends are: Martin Wallace (vocals), Richard Adderley (guitar), David Barnett (bass) and Paddy Pulzer (drums).

Martin Wallace's life changed forever when, at the age of thirteen, he saw Suede play "Metal Mickey" on Top Of The Pops: "I was brought up in a tiny village called Whyteleafe, near Purley," he sighs. "Very leafy and boring. And then, one evening this group appeared on the television and I was besotted in an instant. They just seemed so exotic and suggested so many new possibilities and that was the first time I realised the power that pop music had. I sincerely believe that pop music still has the power to change people's lives."

Fast forward to February 1999, when the now London-based Martin and his friend Richard Adderley wrote their first two songs together after Martin had been invited to contribute to a series of one-off singles on a new independent label. Unfortunately, the label had folded by the time they had handed in the demos but the pair continued working on songs together at a slow but steady rate over the following couple of years. Early in 2002 they enlisted friends David Barnett and Paddy Pulzer with a view to forming a group to perform the songs they were writing.

A series of sporadic and experimental rehearsals began but it wasn't until the autumn of 2002 that the rehearsals became more regular and the group began to stumble across a signature style, containing elements of both New Wave abrasiveness and classic, anthemic pop. It was with the arrival of their name (chosen "because we are all such good boyfriend material" remarks Martin) early in 2003 that the group becan to develop an identity. Their first show, on 6th June 2003, was an almost sold out appearance at the Bull And Gate, the day before Martin's twenty-fourth birthday. To Richard's delight, it was attended by Jim Reid from The Jesus And Mary Chain, who professed The Boyfriends to be "quite good".

By the winter of 2004, all this had evolved into something truly distinctive, with the band seeming to becoming a classically English, warmly emotional but noisy guitar group. During a busy 2005 they released two of their demos on an acclaimed split EP with The Long Blondes, had a demo featured on indie compliation series Downloaded, another on the second Angular Records compilation, recorded a session for John Kennedy's Xfm X-posure show, and even enjoyed an entire live set broadcast on the same show. To top it all, that June their demo of "Speak Less And Listen" was played three times by three separate Radio 1 DJs over consecutive nights: Rob Da Bank, Huw Stevens and Steve Lamacq.

Things shifted up another notch at the end of June. It all started when NME declared The Boyfriends #29 in a list of the 50 essential bands to catch that summer. Then they hit the headlines and made history by being the first band ever to play the John Peel Stage at Glastonbury - in apocalyptic conditions. Says Martin: "It was an honour - in fact we were the first group to play at all - and no small achievement to do so without serious personal injury, given that we were playing in the middle of an electrical storm and water was dripping from the roof of the tent onto the stage." The appearance was subsequently broadcast on BBC 2, 3 and 4, with critical praise appearing afterwards in both the Independent (see above quote) and NME, as well as an airing of set-closer "There Is Always Hope" by Huw Stevens. In fact, it was Huw who got them signed to Cardiff-based indie Boobytrap Records.

And the acclaim continues: Xfm's Lauren Laverne mentioned the band in a published list of herten favourite new bands, Simon Amstell tipped them as a new band to look out for on Channel 4's Popworld, and they've also supported The Hidden Cameras in London and Morrissey on an entire European tour at his personal request after he attended one of their shows in early 2006.

Visually, the band have been likened (by Playlouder.com) to sexually ambivalent East End ruffians, while Artrocker.com dubbed them "a real fearsome looking crew who give the air of being happier on the terraces than singing tender love songs". Lyrically, they mingle aggression and romanticism with extreme optimism to create a sound described by Joyzine.co.uk as "violently hopeful". Musically, The Boyfriends can be dark but are always uplifting. Their song "No Tomorrow" was described by Xfm's John Kennedy as "an anthem for a new generation." Their music has gained airplay everywhere from Radio 1 in the UK to RDU in New Zealand, and been spun by DJs from the Queens Of Noize at the Barfly in Camden to Dior Homme's Hedi Slimane at Mis-Shapes in New York.

February 2006 saw the release of their first single, "I Love You". Their second, "Adult Acne", followed in May, reaching number ten in the UK indie chart.