Everything about Reading boys Morning Runner refutes the supposition that men have trouble expressing emotion. The heart-shaped design on the cover of their debut, with its silhouette of a courting couple, embodies the quivering romanticism inside - here's a group whose singer doesn't mind being "the tree in the background, babe, to shade you and your heart".

With epic guitar action to add a bit of backbone, and a poetic wailer in Matthew Greener, the album contains the same ingredients that stand Starsailor and recent tour-mates Coldplay in such good stead. Does it have the tunes, though? Blazingly anthemic as it is, its contents don't lodge in the memory. Perhaps the big-statement impact of the thing as a whole cancels out nuances that would otherwise make ballads such as Hold Your Breath stand out.

None the less, if there's a vacancy for a new Coldplay, Morning Runner are your boys.