And what, you may ask, qualifies an overweight karate kid from a nation whose greatest dance export was Shakin' Stevens to review the new album from Sweden's electro-rock heavyweights The Sounds?

Well, apart from a, perhaps, unhealthy obsession with 80s movie Footloose, very little. That is unless you have wormed your way into my inner sanctum and entered my boudoir to find, shining like a beacon amongst the various t-shirts encompassing every shade of black, a well-worn band shirt made up of the blue and yellow of the Swedish flag. Okay, it might have been bought when I worshipped at the Mellberg temple, the smell of Allback still in my nostrils, but bought it I did. The Sounds are familiar to me.

The next question, I guess, is how to convince some readers, to whom the band would be as welcome to their ears as an excrement-smeared burrowing mite, that this album should happily swim up their auditory canal. Music is music is music and, with genre borders constantly moving and lines of division constantly blurring, embarrassment over being caught listening to, or actually liking, bands like The Sounds should be almost invisible in these times. Why? Because, attitude-wise, The Sounds rock. Musically? Heard the new single from Reckless Love? If you have then you already know the answer....

Since 'Living In America', the band's 2002 debut album, The Sounds have straddled the border between dance rock and indie pop, their genre-bending tunes throwing up new wave comparisons. 'Something To Die For', the band's fourth album, throws up little but forty one minutes of highly contagious ear candy.

Written, recorded and produced by the band in their own studio over much of 2010, this fourth album, said guitarist/keyboardist Jesper Anderberg, was to emphasize the band's love of electronic music a little more than its predecessor, and the album's opener, the two and a half minute electro-fuelled 'It's So Easy', easily proves that he walks it like he talks it. 'Dance With The Devil', the second track, seems happy to adhere to these rules too, with potential worldwide smash hit pencilled on its hide. But then 'The No No Song' kicks in and we're back to the sweet sound of The Sounds that we are more familiar with. An alterno-hit in the making, this song, with delicious vocalist Maja Ivarsson raising the temperature with some perfectly-timed potty mouth, offers some indie cred to a record happy to zig-zag between straight-out pop and cult commerciality.

And this change of pace has been the cause of indifferent reviews afforded the album since its earlier release in certain European territories, the main complaint being that the band members have abandoned their alternative past in order to crash the mainstream pop charts. And, while I can sympathize with the bitter fans of the band's older material, you can hardly blame the Swedish five piece for wanting a taste of worldwide success, especially as they should probably have achieved at least a little more of it over the releases of their previous three albums.

But the indifference of some shouldn't cloud the spattering of great songs that drip from this new album like honey. Yes, the singles 'Better Off Dead' and the album's title track might be Summery wisps of radio-friendly pop, but they are counterbalanced by songs like 'Diana', a Blondie-like love letter to that new wave influence, and the glorious 'Won't Let Them Tear Us Apart' which fuses the album's loudest guitar to a throbbing bass line and colours it with gorgeous Eighties synth and the most outrageously catchy disco-esque backing vocals this side of 'Dynasty'.

If this album is considered a blip by long-term fans of The Sounds then so be it, for it will surely open new doors for the band, ones from which they may never return. For this listener at least, the only upset I have experienced since introducing myself to this album is that, in researching the band, I found that a couple of years ago they toured the US with both Foxy Shazam and Semi Precious Weapons in support and I wasn't there. Now that's disappointment.....

www.myspace.com/thesounds