Presidents unprecedented

FOR the last five years Seattle has been known as the city that gave us grunge - not a type of music best known for its fun factor.

It's ironic and refreshing, then, that the same town has given us The Presidents of the United States of America. Their off-the-wall humour provides welcome levity amid the sometimes stifling atmosphere of 'serious' rock music, particularly of the navel-gazing 'indie' variety.

The trio's brilliant self-titled debut album includes a song about a cat (Kitty ), a funky number about a reclusive bug (Boll Weevil ), a tune about gorging on fruit (Peaches ) and a tale about a blind spider who drives a tiny blue dune buggy (Dune Buggy ).

But this should not be dismissed as wacky 'comedy' music that you'll only play once or twice - the songs have hooks that will sink right into you and won't let go. In fact, it's addictive.

Lyrics are deliciously surreal and often silly - 'got 15 hundred bass-drum luggin' bug-eyed monkeys, all arriving at the station' from Back Porch or 'mud flowed up into Lump's pyjamas, she totally confused all the passing piranhas' from Lump, the band's infectious current single.

The self-deprecating We Are Not Going to Make It ('cos there's a million better bands, with a million better songs') has a message or two for the rock world's egomaniacs (Oasis take note).

In addition to the dafter numbers are a couple of darker ones, such as Candy, which could be a perfectly innocent tune about a sweet tooth, or a deep metaphor for obsessive infatuation, depending on your mood. And there's a veritable (and expletive-free) stampede through a version of the MC5's Kick Out The Jams, though some of the lyrics may have been re-written (I don't recall that radical Detroit band singing about 'the poodle in your pocket').