For all rock fans, there comes a day when you have to make a decision. It's one which could affect your listening habits forever and may even alter your perception of music. How long and with how clean a conscience can one compromise intelligence/originality for good riffs? It was with a heavy heart that when I drew my own line in the sand, I looked up and found Reuben balancing precariously upon it. I was gripped by the certainty that their next album would bring them closer to my lain-out towel, sunscreen and picnic blanket or banish them forever to the harsh sea. This is the sense in which I greeted 'Very Fast, Very Dangerous'.

Quickly 'Very Fast, Very Dangerous' progresses from the "It all panned out in a way I like, and yeah, I got my faults but it's alright" mentality of 'A Kick in The Mouth', to self-deprecation done well. In 'Some Mothers Do Ave Em' lies everything good about Reuben. It's not the self-pitying, attention seeking lyricism that so-blights current rock, it's a humorous acceptance of ones' station, hoping for better. Jamie Lenman sings, screams and riffs his arse off. The song begins setting out the stall of his life, what he's achieved and his own analysis of it all;
"I got a band and a woman too,
I got a plan and a focussed view,
And that's cool for twenty one" As he breaks into the chorus of "I've already stayed for too long/I will only break your heart when I go" It's as though he's lost focus, until it becomes clear the song relates to leaving home. It really kicks around 2 minutes in, in a riff that is transitional between the rock song format and a scream-off of head-banging proportions;
'SO I'M STAYING HOME/ 'CAUSE TO MY NEIGHBOURS/ I'M FUCKING FAMOUS'.

'Nobody Loves You' is a gentle, slow ballad. Yes, in rock terms, perhaps not equal to an errection in the Vatican in the shock stakes. But it's done so well, and so sincerely that the words "Nobody loves you like I do" sound desperate and assured in equal measure. It floats by like a dream into well composed violins, not the over-produced full orchestra of a glossy major label "punk" band.

Another album hi-light follows in the verse-chorus-verse-chorus stylee of 'Keep it to Yourself'. Sick of some bastard telling you about his shitty day when yours was worse? Stop him mid-sentence, put on your ear phones and walk away with this ringing in your ears. The song-title says it all and it's one of the catchier moments of VFVD. The next three songs continue in this vein and I suppose that is a weakness one can identify. They're not bad songs, at a party they'd do fine chugging from the CD player in the corner, but they don't need to be distinguished. I feel no desire to analyse every single one, save saying they're good rock songs. Not excellent, not bad. The same cannot be said of the sheer journey that is…