Try To Be Hopeful by The Spook School (Fortuna POP!, CD, LP + download,FPOP191CD / FPOP191LP)

The four Spook School students are way too young to have heard bands such as Buzzcocks or Altered Images the first time round, but that hasn't stopped this Edinburgh outfit from hitting gold with their perky release. Treble-heavy and guitardriven in a way that is reminiscent of Buzzocks' 'Winfield wall of sound' (a reference to the earlier band's cheap guitars from Woolworth's), Try To Be Hopeful bounces along at a fair lick. It's an assertive album, bashful in all the right places, and Nye and Adam Todd (guitars), Anna Cory (bass) and Niall McCamley (drums) - they all do vocals - deliver the goods with a good-humoured, nofrills approach.

So far, so good. But what marks out the Spook School and this, its second album, is the lyrics. …