Bravado gets you everywhere, provided you actually have the minerals to back it up of course. Just ask Kanye West or the Gallagher Brothers about bravado, they run courses on it. Justin Burford oozes confidence so much you wonder if his band End Of Fashion should've been called Self Assured.

Serving their apprenticeships under Luke Steele's communist regime Sleepy Jackson, Burford and guitarist Rodney Aravena know the ins and outs of what sells records so they have the jump on their rivals. Their self titled debut is so neat and clean that you wonder if they have discovered a record making wizard program, but then you really listen to the songs and realise that only humans are capable of making something like this.

The much lauding of Dennis Herring (Modest Mouse, Counting Crows) as producer and recording it in his hometown in Mississippi means not a jot. This is the sound of quality Aussie pop/rock that bands like You Am I have been championing for years. If anything their everyman rock is closer to Welsh group Stereophonics than America's deep south.

Seeing that near half the album's songs have already been released in one form or another (and re-recorded for this release but that's for another debate), familiarity comes quite easily for the listener. Striking ballad 'Rough Diamonds' is already a cult classic while latest single 'O Yeah' (with it's sly nod to The Pixies) is inescapable on the FM bandwith. Meanwhile the quirky 'Lock Up You Daughters' is one nerd instrument away from being a Split Enz song.

Like I said, this is Self Assured with a capital S (and I guess also a capital A). They could care little for Australia's self imposed 'Tall Poppie Syndrome'. Which is a good thing, because where they are going it is beyond our quaint little island.