Still, it has its ups and this, an unashamedly joyous slice of the kind of pop only the holiday months can bring, is one of them. "Dear Sir" sees Mice, Julianne Regan's latest project, at their brightest and most bouyant. And it's certainly a change. The debut single, last year's "Mat's Prozac", like much of the forthcomming album, was a collision of discord and melody, a good deal darker than this. A forcibly wised-up Regan had clearly spent the dole years after the break-up of All About Eve considering her changing circumstances and modifying an already finely-honed pop sensibilitty.

This, though, as we say, is the very lightest of reliefs. A chopping, stop-start guitar races Regan through a surprisingly hedonistic mantra, all the while pursued by those angelic and ever-evolving backing vocals (something of a trademark, that). Truly blissful stuff, and all the better for being guaranteed to piss off those consumed by the unconvincingly glum likes of Red House Painters.

Having said that, they and everyone else should check out that Mice album.

- The Stud Brothers