- Sticky Fingers have made me raise an eyebrow, more than once. Just hearing their indie-reggae schtick was the first time. They kept getting me just the same way, too: sending random, and highly unpolished mp3s every six months or so, then disappearing again. The strength of their songwriting kept me hoping I’d hear more and it must’ve been enough to get them across the line, too, because, here we are, four years on, a second full-length just out and Sticky Fingers in the music press headlines every other day.

Of course, half the time it’s for the wrong reasons. When your band is named after an album, featuring on its cover a giant wang rammed into a tight pair of jeans I guess you’re giving everyone a clue, but The Sticky Fingers still have a surprising knack for getting themselves into sticky situations, behaving like the worst kind of rock’n’roll brats they know how. The worst part is, they’re making me feel like Molly Meldrum, lecturing drunks on Countdown...dude that’s low. Look at Pete Doherty lads, this crap is its own reward.

When they’re not upsetting old fuddy-duddies, Sticky Fingers have been steadily refining their sound. On their second full-length they’ve modulated again, there’s still tons of the trademark reggae-pop but there’s other things as well. Their most recent single, Just For You, will give you a good idea of their new fascination with the old sound of Madchester, right down to the Mancunian brogue. What’s up with that? It’s definitely taking the tribute too far, but, as usual there’s no denying the strength of the songwriting: a speeding and booming bit of dance rock, lifted even higher by that lilting piano melody over the top, excellent.

It confirms another new addition to the Sticky sound, one that you would have heard on the first advance single, Gold Snafu, which brought more than a bit of Oasis style attitude, but what I’m talking about is all the reverb. Again, it’s like the Stickies thought that you wouldn’t be convinced how psychedelic they are without a canyon full of echoes. That aside, the song isn't quite as strong as Just For You, but that one’s a blinder and Snafu or not, it’s not half bad.

Sticky Fingers have always had a gift for classic pop, the kind that stretches beyond current tastes for West African rhythms and woah-oh-ohs. You’ll get some of that on Land Of Pleasure, like the soft-pop-rock of Liquorlip. Deploying their trademark sound: the sunsoaked reggae-indie-rap fusion suggests a summer anthem single for further down the track, that would do The Cat Empire or even Sugar Ray proud. On the back half of the record there’s a too-ing and fro-ing between that and the band’s new taste for the similarly warm sounds of Manchester in the early ‘90s.

I don’t know if there’s another tune as big as Just For You, but as a fusion of Madchester, reggae and indie-pop by a bunch of rock’n’roll bad boys -I’m going to get boring saying this- it’s remarkably solid. Whatever they might do when they’re misbehaving, Sticky Fingers have the songs to let them get away with exactly as much murder as they feel like.

- Chris Cobcroft.