‘All American Girl’ is the debut single of one Anna Mercedes and her band Miss Machine. Let's hope this is the last. Miss Machine’s sole tag seems to be that Strokes producer Gordon Raphael was slumped in the producer chair, quite possibly unconscious whilst this unearthly dirge was committed to reel. If anything, this record seems to cement suspicions that Mister Raphael had veritably little to do in creating the lilting sleaze of the Strokes' debut LP (interestingly, Nigel Godrich is set to sit in on their next album).

As for Anna Mercedes and Miss Machine, it seems having a rock star cool name and being from New York are not the only necessary constituents for greatness. Banshee-like wailing over primitive fuzz and tub-thumping has been done before and maybe with a little more panache.

You can have your ‘All American Girl’, I’ll take an English Rose any day.