Call it coincidence, call it make believe, call it what you will - the facts were plain to see. As 'My Dinosaur Life', the fourth album from Motion City Soundtrack, jolted the ÜRHQ mailbox into life the sky was simply haemorrhaging water.....

This album (and band) can be labelled "alt" this and "punk" that but to every single neon of eye and sugar-coated of heart music lover out there this music has always been, and always will be, power pop. And no weather system is better to test out a new album of this glorious genre than a demonic downpour, for a great album full of "wish-I-had-thought-of-that" wordplay and luxurious melody makes every day feel like the sun is shining brighter than it ever has and ever will again.

This fourth album from the mercurial Minneapolis ten-legged nerd herd is the first for a major label, Columbia, and the second to be produced (all bar one track) by Mark Hoppus of Blink 182 who was also at the helm of the band's 2005 breakout album 'Commit This To Memory.' Third album 'Even If It Kills Me' was less well-received than its predecessor so the choice of producer may well have been of the lucky mascot variety, talent included of course. If the aim was to simply make a great record then, in the words of one of the scene's forefathers, their aim was true.

You may have had your fancy tickled by the video for lead single 'Her Words Destroyed My Planet' which has been slapping grins across the features of music channel automatons for the past few weeks with its ironic dance moves, Weezer-tinged sound and chorus straight out of a Butch Walker melody manual (the volume that he hasn't used for a few years). The song is a great introduction to the record even if it may not be wholly representative of the other eleven tracks on offer. Think 'Stacy's Mom' and the 'Welcome Interstate Managers' album by Fountains Of Wayne, whose bassist Adam Schlesinger actually twiddled some production knobs on seven of the tracks on 'Even If It Kills Me'.....but that's another story.

Self-referential, self-deprecating, both subtle and scathing, cynical and sincere, this is the music for cool kids who might not think they're cool kids yet and certainly aren't considered cool kids by the proles, people who see a geek whose hair is trying to escape from him while we see the frontman of a band who have just released one of the year's finest albums.

Opener 'Worker Bee' is just the first sugar-coated barb of this desirable dozen songs. Every song contains at least one lyric that you just wish you'd thought of and one humungous hook that a million songwriters would eat their first-born just to get within a mile of. Every song a potential single? If people still released singles, yes. 'History Lesson' throws a curveball in the face of the album's sound just when you think that you've got it all worked out; it is a poison dart to the back of the neck - unexpected, then quickly infectious. The pop culture references colour the satire of the record with broad strokes yet manage to retain a total cliché-less quality. If the lyrics don't get you, the hooks will; the profanity-laced pop perfection of '@!#?@!' being one of the sharpest examples of this art.

The Blink 182 connection and the hit music video are guaranteed to get a new wave (sorry) of music fans interested in Motion City Soundtrack. Kids will grow up with this album as a soundtrack to an important part of their lives and some will lose their virginity while listening to it - yeeuchh! But the reality is that they could be doing it (both growing up and making the two-backed beast) with a load of complete brainwashing shit on their iPods. If they choose to grow up with bands like Motion City Soundtrack then life, my friends, is good. But it isn't all about the youth; if you welcomed in the previous decade to a soundtrack of Marvelous 3, American Hi-Fi, Eve 6, the afore-mentioned Fountains Of Wayne et al, then this album is oxygen to you. You, quite simply, cannot live without it.

'The Weakends', the final track on 'My Dinosaur Life' talks of "pouring rain" and, suddenly, we've come full circle. Put this album on, look out of the window...the sun is shining, isn't it?

www.myspace.com/motioncitysoundtrack