For some mysterious reason, rock singing always comes out in the upper range and without an accent - or perhaps with the Midwestern United States accent that dominates Hollywood movies and American TV. Tom Petty goes from deep-voiced to way up in the register, and Thom Yorke and David Gilmour and essentially every single British singer ever somehow sound American. There are strangely few exceptions to this rule, though I've run into two recently, both Scottish: Frightened Rabbit, and a band heavily influenced by them, We Were Promised Jetpacks. The similarities between the two go beyond just that, though: they're both indie rock acts that play fairly straightforward rock music, largely on distorted electrics, they're both are fairly new acts who have made it (relatively) big fairly fast, both share a record label, and We Were Promised Jetpacks actually opened for Frightened Rabbit.

Where Frightened Rabbit has two full length albums, however, We Were Promised Jetpacks just recently released their debut album, These Four Walls. They are, in my opinion, better at their best than the very similar Frightened Rabbit, but are a bit more uneven. These Four Walls is enjoyable throughout, and I don't skip any songs when I listen to it, but it's an album of good music completely dominated by two awesome songs. The opener, It's Thunder and It's Lightning is one of the two. It takes its time in moving from loud guitars to really loud guitars, the transisition between the two being entirely satisfying at high volume. The other standout, Quiet Little Voices, is buried in the middle of the album, but sticks out immediately. Like It's Thunder and It's Lightning, it moves from loud to loud, and makes perfect use of that second guitar, bringing it in to great effect during the first chorus. Both songs are catchy and just a little on the dark side, and both beg to be turned up loud.

Ultimately, These Four Walls is more about potential to me than anything else. I enjoy the album, and recommend it, and love the hell out of those two songs, but there is certainly room for growth. The band's lyrics are typically simplistic, heavily repeated, and not terribly deep. The other songs on the disc are good, but there's a clear and wide gulf between the standouts and the rest. I very much hope We Were Promised Jetpacks can manage to put out a full album on par with the quality of the heights of These Four Walls. If they can, it will be awesome.