Filial Yorkshire garage heroes The Scaramanga Six are responsible for - to my mind - one of the coolest album titles ever, with their 1999 debut 'The Liar, The Bitch And Her Wardrobe'. It was a patchy but hard rocking lo-budget affair released on tiny indie label Trinity. Four years on, SS are still a fiercely independent Leeds-based outfit who now run their own label Wrath, yet this belated follow-up sounds a million quid in comparison. It's better produced, with a powerful, almost major-label rock sound and much stronger material.

'Strike! Up The Band' sounds like a group at the height of considerable powers, yet working entirely outside the indie scene, let alone the actual industry. SS wear the outsider costume well and exude a mafia-like family vibe, alongside awesome self-confidence. It gives strength to a vintage garage sound which places them much closer to a previous generation of energetic rockers, the Rocket From The Crypts, John Spencers or Goldblades than any skinny-rib Libertines brattery. Songs as deft, varied and memorable as 'Pressure Cage' or opener 'Six Six Six' also nod to a wider sense of Englishness that the London crowd often miss out on - these people really know their music. It wouldn't shock me if they grew towards psychedelia over the next few years.

SS have the requisite bulk in brother frontmen Paul and Steven Morricone, who pose in perfect foil to Julia Arnez's woman-on-top menace. Paul even pulls a Clarence Clemons honking sax into the blend on occasion, something only the most taut of men can get away with, without funny looks.

'Strike! Up The Band' is probably too long, with 10 of these 14 tracks probably making a better record. And towards the end there are two consecutive songs containing the band name in the title, which can't be healthy. But screw the missing A&R voice: heard in context of their resources and off-kilter approach, this is a bloody mighty little rock record that flies in the face of at least one current vogue - eschewing the possibility that blind ignorance is an appropriate selling point for loud music. SS never let you forget, even for a second, that they know EXACTLY what they're doing.