Vim Fuego There was a time, believe it or not, when the first thing someone wanting to play in a rock band did was to go out and actually learn how to play an instrument. Dear Superstar do the decadence and excess thing, but unlike many a hairspray rock pretender, these guys earned the privilege first.

If you like hearing guitars being shredded, but without the heavy metal attitude, you can't go far past "Sunset Strip Suicide". The title and lyrics might be straight out of mid-'80s LA, but it doesn't have the posture or pose of yet another Mötley Crüe tribute song, because guitarists Rockhurst and McNasty can actually play. The song also has a delicious drunken swagger to it.

Sure, impressive licks and high tensile hooks are good, but are merely decorations if there is no medium in which to express them. Well, Dear Superstar do songs too. There's not a hint of filler anywhere. The title track drives like Guns N' Roses at their best. "Falling Apart" is a hard edged power ballad, and yes, you guessed it, a girl is the cause of the troubles. The main recurring riff to "Break Up" sounds like Eddie Van Halen playing a cameo, but the rest of the song is surprisingly more like One Minute Silence, vocals included.

Vocalist Micky Satiar has the occasional shouty emo lapse, but then redeems himself with moments of pure Zodiac Mindwarp-style theatre, minus the unintentional self-parody. In other words, he can sing and doesn't sound like a big girl doing it. Satiar shows a fairly diverse range. OK, so he's no Mike Patton, but he does melodic, clean, emotion-charged, rapped, shouted, whispered and roared. It often sounds like the band has more than one singer, but it is just the single larger-than-life personality in the spotlight.

If you're sick of bands promising much and then delivering fuck all because of lack of ability or attitude, Dear Superstar could well save a lot of disappointment. Try other bands first, by all means, but do yourself a favour and check these guys out soon.