Nobody, but nobody, combines the inane and the banal quite like The Suzukis. There’s Oasis, then below that Kasabian, then Twisted Metal (who? Oh them), then (Viva) Brother, then several thousand fathoms of shit-smelling piss-water, then The Suzukis. Conducted at the expense of Suzuki frontman, Chris Veasey, this ugly slice of smirking cultural / class superiority is a pox on all our names, but two minutes in the company of the Wigan quartet is enough to turn even the most open-minded music fan into a simpering art-Sloan. Billy Porter’s disingenuous absurdism is small potatoes next to the prescribed, vote-buying dross the Wiganites are spoon-feeding their target audience. Unlike Porter, we’re going to be straight with them.

Mediocre painter and all-round shit, Adolph Hitler offered some handy hints on how to be a ‘man of the people’, inadvertently exposing The Suzukis’ game plan (taken from Mein Kampf): “The receptive powers of the masses are very restricted, and their understanding is feeble . On the other hand, they quickly forget [God, Kasabian was total bollo..Oooh Empire!]. Such being the case, all effective propaganda must be confined to a few bare essentials and those must be expressed as far as possible in stereotyped formulas . These slogans should be persistently repeated until the very last individual has come to grasp the idea that has been put forward [that very last individual….probably Lad-father / professional wanker / famed Ramones fan, Tim Lovejoy].” Who says politics in music is dead?

Now, we aren’t saying the band or Deltasonic’s PR are Nazis. Both parties (ha) are really quite lovely (and it’s libellous). No, all we’re saying is that the PR is contemptuous (the biog, written by a celebrated music scribe no less, reads like the musings of a disgruntled Oasis fan with a persecution complex – fookin’ wine bars, fookin’ all-seater stadiums) and the band are…well take it away Mr Veasey (Bear in mind he’s their chief lyricist): ‘It’s quite fast and it’s quite heavy, but it’s not heavy for the sake of being heavy. You can listen to bands like Radiohead and they’re heavy in a way, aren’t they? Heavy in a good way. It’s got real heavy bits and it’s got a lot of power in it, but I think it’s got good songs on it and I think it sounds good. I’m obviously going to say that though, aren’t I? I think it’s good and I think everybody should buy it ‘. Fuck me, tell us more.

Modish pub-punk of this ilk is a bit like Gene Hackman – it’s looked roughly the same since the Seventies: old as shit. Flying in the face of total irrelevance, words can’t express the end-of-the-pier, swaggering momma’s boy nightmare that befalls the listener on the cosmically bad The Suzukis Forged on a foundation of lumpy dynamics and a dat’ll-furkin-do approach to structuring, when they aren’t trafficking in anodyne Oi!, as intimidating as a tickling of the armpit, Veasey is flooding cackhanded sub-Rascals Tescos psyche with cartoonish depictions of working class culture, seasoned with all the stinging poignancy of a Tom Clarke at his most observational. Gob Gob, Piss Piss, Wa-hey, he goes, his band desperately clinging to a fading paradigm in the face of 20 years of innovation, lest their impotent stab at self-authentication falls apart at the seams. Veasey on being furious: “Work, Work, Oh no”. Well batten down the hatches!

‘Really High’ (bloated fluff) and ‘Boring Hell’ (you better believe it) scuttle past, before an orgy of saggy songwriting in the middle section begets the pancake-flat ‘Personal Jesus’ and ‘Join Us’ which models an unintentional satire on self-loathing masculinity. Then there’s ‘Reasons For Leaving’ which practically samples Nirvana’s ‘Rape Me’. I mean, do they think we’re stupid? Perhaps if your entire musical universe consists of a ten-disc record collection then that’s an obscure steal.

The Suzukis! They’re only the band Northern Uproar could have been. Eighteen MySpace friends can’t be wrong.