IN 2001, REVOLUTION WAS IN THE AIR

Interesting tales from Sandi Thom's past: apparently, after the police came to arrest her boyfriend during a domestic dispute, Thom ended up with a truncheon in the face. She was arrested, but was discharged on breaching the peace charges; she then tried to sue the police but that also got dropped.

And she wishes she'd been around for the excitement of punk.

“It was a horrible experience and it’s in the past. I don’t want to think about it again and would like to get on with my career.”

It's a pity - there you are pumping out tunes that are completely devoid of anything to say and giving the impression that you've had a life untroubled by any incident whatsoever, and it turns out you have had experiences which might fuel some sort of creative process.

Of course, there's further evidence suggesting that Thom's music has been put together by a bunch of forty-something year old men with the new album. In the same way that I Wish I Was A Punk Rocker sounds less like a young girl dreaming of being born in a different time and more like a roundtable of ageing guys in tshirts trying to recast the years of their youth, the title of the album doesn't sound right.

Smile... it confuses people.

Now, if it was called 'All your base are belong to us', we could believe that the name came from someone of Thom's generation. But this phrase is the sort of lameass slogan which used to appear on those cheap tshirts that used to be sold from full-page ads in the back of the NME and Smash Hits during the early years of the Thatcher era. Even back then they were old capitalist's ideas of what young idealists might say. But in 2006? It's so out of time it's like having a Beowulf quote on your sleeve.

We look forward to the follow-ups "Too Thick For University", "Life Is An Illusion Created By Lack of Alcohol" and, of course, the contract-fulfilling compilation "I'm With Stupid."

We recommend, by the way, Charlie Brooker's evidence that Thom might be the musical antichrist.

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