Did you get it? You know, the band's name? "Test", and "icicles" together, next to each other. Say it out loud. That's right. Tee-hee. "Test Iciciles" are the latest arrival from the UK press hype machine, and predictably enough, their band name is about the most interesting thing on display here, even if Testeagles did come up with the gag first.

Maybe I'm just getting old, but you need something more than a vaguely amusing band name and some equally cringeworthy song titles to really make an impression. Not that I blame Sam Merrann, Devonte Hynez and Rory Aggwelt, the minds behind this album for the marketing monster this album has become, quite obviously the songs here were only meant as a laugh, a few post-punk tunes put together on an afternoon, perhaps with the aid of some cheap hallucinogens. At least, that's what it sounds like, if this is an actual serious effort on their part, then they probably should look into becoming economists or lawyers or something.

"For Screening Purposes Only" is essentially a rehash of Death From Above 1979, with faint dashes of Whirlwind Heat and Bloc Party. Their principal sound of choice is guitars sheathed in an impenetrable layer of sonic static, with the occasional electronic or hip-hop element thrown in for good measure. While it might sound good on paper, the execution is severely hampered by the fact that these guys show about as much songwriting maturity as a pair of thirteen year old boys with a box full of mouldy old porno mags, and their vocalist just sounds so snotty and annoying that I want to smash him in the face with a glass cricket bat.

For a good indication of the band's preferred mode of operation, look no further than Your Biggest Mistake. What starts out as a vaguely agreeable noise-rock track rapidly gets more and more overblown with each and every shriek, until it almost sounds like a parody of the genre. Dancing On Pegs sounds like the vocalist has just been punched, hard, in the groin, while songs like Boa vs Python are basically thrashy emo on steroids.

My biggest clue that this album was nothing more than a harmless prank gone terribly, terribly wrong, was the fact that the band obligingly split shortly after releasing this album. It's not terrible, by any means, but it's so paper thin and watered down that I can't help but feel that if they hadn't been massively hyped beyond their abilities, they would still be playing seedy pubs in London. I hope Test Icicles enjoyed their trip on the hype train, because they probably won't be stepping aboard again.