Tracklist: Dog Is Dead - River Jordan

On their three singles so far Dog Is Dead have given the impression that this is, if this isn't playing them down too much, where you'd hope the Mystery Jets would have gone rather than fannying around in some imagined 1984. Theirs is a classically melodic guitar pop nous - we're in the Roddy Frame/Lloyd Cole sphere of that sort of thing, for reference - but with a litany of arty influences pulling at its edges. River Jordan starts like a proleteriat second album Foals, then slowly introduces a set of other elements - needling Afrobeat guitar splashes, harmony interjections that turn out to be the shortest of choruses, what seems to be mandolin acting as pacemaker. There's a great big cosmic choral thing for the bridge, and then we take off in overlapping jazz-psych-indie before the big hook crashes in. It's a typically constructed tremendous pop song, just done blindfold with polystyrene building blocks to make it that bit more interesting.