Tony Clayton-Leaheaps praise upon pop punksters, The Flaws.

The Flaws

McHugh's Music Venue, Drogheda

2006 was a good year for home-grown talent - bands such as Director, the Blizzards, the Immediate, Royseven and Humanzi released albums of varying quality yet with a regular assertiveness that augurs well for 2007. Hot on the heels of these bands is another batch of Irish hopefuls, fronted most assuredly by The Flaws, who, if there is any justice at all, will see out this coming year with an acclaimed debut album, a string of club and festival dates and a throng of new fans.

Frankly, you have to see these young guys - Paul Finn, vocals/guitar, Shane Malone, guitar, Dave McMahon, bass, and Stephen Finnegan, drums - to get a glimpse of how good Irish music could be in 2007. Using as a basis a fairly formal punk/pop style, the band applies a kind of focused attention to detail that other acts sorely lack.

They are musically aggressive without the potential for full-scale violence, they are supremely melodic without falling prey to mainstream lowest-common-denominator traps, and they have choruses so cute, astute and sturdy you're left wondering how come more popular acts don't sneak into their gigs and nick them.

It's all in the songs, mind, each one without a sliver of gristle. With a set more or less comprising their debut album, you've got killer punk/pop tracks such as Throw Away, Taste So Down, 1981, You & I, Out Tonightand Sixteen, superb slow build-up tunes such as Slow Dance(complete with the utterly sensible lyric "Sleep is the new high" and a stinging guitar motif) and Mother(a potential cliche turned on its head by virtue of a rising musical throb and, yes, a xylophone solo).

Part Interpol with suit jackets unbuttoned, part Undertones/That Petrol Emotion hybrid with ever-ready batteries, all that's missing from tonight's gig is a decent turn-out and a bit of a dance floor ruck. Plenty of time for that this year, we reckon.

Tony Clayton-Lea