Review - Future Signs

Although Warm Jets' frontman Louis Jones name-checks Liz Phair and Pavement in his publicity bio, the Jets' debut album bears no resemblance to those two scions of Matador Records. It's as though Jones wanted reviewers to look for an American hard-edged quirkiness in "Future Signs" and to assure them in advance that this was no Brit-pop copycat album riding on the coattails of Blur and Oasis.

Nonetheless, the Warm Jets have indeed created an album of self-assured pop-rock -- something like a tighter version of the young Smashing Pumpkins. A fine, somewhat mannered vocalist, Jones' songwriting is inclined toward massive, blustery pop choruses -- "Hurricane" and "Autopia" lasso your brain and keep it tied for days -- and the album maintains a momentum that hardly ever becomes monotonous.

The future looks bright for the Warm Jets.