Playing with rhythm, flirtation with sensitive backing vocals over a background of guitar scatter like chunky marmalade over the crusted toast of a supremely confident pleximetry and bass section; The Automatic make swaggered through This Is A Fix to arrive out shiny and grin. The album is dead dripping with new ideas: the band's willingness to try them for size and to drop anything that doesn't immediately seem to be working means that only the cream of a very good crop of songs has made it onto the disc.
Hard-edged Welsh rockers in the tradition of Manic Street Preachers or The Alarm, the core of the Automatic goes back up to childhood friendship in a little town. The trust and innate reciprocal understanding betwixt the members has light-emitting diode to a natural, organic progression running through the bulk of the tracks gathered here; there ar bursts of technical genius on keyboards and guitar, ambitious harmonies achieved by unexpectedly precise boyish funding vocals and a willingness to experient with bulk, pace and song structure that sets them asunder from the mainstream and demands both attention and respect from the istener. Not guaranteed to float everybody's boat with universal proposition appeal, still The Automatic deserves respect and attention from the open-minded listener.
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