Daddy or chips? Destiny's Child or The Stooges? Bittersweet Bristolians Phonic can't decide who the biggest influence on their sound is, and a quick spin of their jaw droppingly good debut album, 'Crossed The Line' will leave you equally at pains to draw comparisons.

That, kids, is a GOOOOOOD thing. It means there's still someone out there who's taken the trouble to salute their influences and still come up with something fresh. Something urgent, worthwhile and yet totally against the grain of the current pop status quo.

Phonic are four. And what a life affirming, screwed down tight sound they make. But it's the core that makes them that extra bit special.

Shane Lee Roynon (magnificent, reckless, explosive guitarist and singer) and Maudie Lowe (Telecaster swinging, gorgeous purring glamour puss with a scratch you won't forget. Haven't seen her? Imagine if the Baader Meinhoff gang got Vogue's production office to design their recruitment posters).

The pair have known each other since college. They clicked on a music course, seemingly the only ones there who, individually, actually had a clue why. They both had the same plans. Uncanny, but then these things often are, aren't they? Either way, you'd have needed a stenographer on hand to note down the hundreds of influences and ideas for songs and bands and sounds they bounced off each other.

A couple of months later they managed to get something down. The very limited 'Running Out Of Time EP' was the result. Sulky, petulant, pouting and just a bit rocking it was a triumphant first release that caused genuine excitement in their hometown and beyond. And then?

Well it's been a few months but the wait has been worth it. It seems that the duo wanted to expand their sound, get in a drummer - Henry Orna, and a bassist - Chris Ward and lose the samples, the boom boom machines, be a bit more, honest.
And like the old saying the truth does out. Here is a quite startling collection of songs full of amazing playing and hurt, wonder-fuelled lyrics. As the title track points out they've crossed the line into a place where they truly, utterly, stand alone. Check the epic Justify, or the swooning Dreaming, with it's sugar sweet chorus and arsenic laced verses for proof that now Phonic are in charge of mapping out pop's territory it's going to be a much more interesting place to visit.