For far too long, Australia's Gold Coast region has been the joke of the local music industry. It hasn't helped that our biggest export in Peter Andre now stumbles from British tabloids to D-Grade Celebrity TV game shows like a drunkard on a night out on the piss on the famous glitter strip.

It stops this year though. Their seems to be a ground swell of actual talent taking back the pubs that sooner or later our good friend the drunkard will put down his pint and say, "Hang on a shecond, we may have sumfing here."

Too right we do rummy. Young Ernst and his collective (now called the tongue twisting Black Market Rhythm Co.) make good on their earlier EP releases and have put together a fine assortment of tunes for their debut self titled long-player.

Evidence of their well honed jamming can be heard on the lap steel firecracker 'The Blind Will Lead Us' where bassist Matt Granfield and tub-thumper Wayne Bennett get a great rock groove going on.

However it is the introduction of fourth member Jake O'Brien on Trumpet that not only adds a new depth to the group but also sets them apart from their roots/rock contemporaries. O'Brien helps opener 'Morning, Evening, Afternoon' become a tasteful white funk number while lending an almost mournful French refrain to 'Smoke And Play'.

Like their earlier material, the Rhythm Co. can mix it up enough while not managing to put anyone offside. On 'And So We Play', everyone is on song as they belt out a hot acid-jazz number that seems to say "We can do Jack Johnson but can Jack do this?"

But as we well know it is the ballads the shift units and in 'True Love' they have that special song to break through. Ernst's emotive vocals (once again channeling the wonderful Tracy Chapman) will helpfully guide the tune to radio stations in the near future.

While minor complaints are mostly of a clinical level (No problem with only the 8 tracks but at 28 minutes another track or so would've been nice) as with any debut album it is always hard to shake off the influences that they wear on their sleeves. Though that is certainly the case here, the Black Market Rhythm Co. definitely have the chutzpah to make decent inroads in this country.