It's a shame that Britpop brings up memories of dull guitar-rock traditionalists stuck in thrall to the spirit of the 60s, because it's very tempting to dub Athlete's debut album, Vehicles and Animals, a minor British pop classic. The work of an East London quartet with a wry observational eye and a sound planted somewhere between Squeeze, XTC and Blur from the time of Modern Life Is Rubbish, Vehicles and Animals is a success of subtle experimentalism, box-twiddling electronic trickery and brightly optimistic pop nous. "You Got the Style" tackles racial unrest in multicultural London with a sunbeam of pure positivity, frontman Joel Pott offering "We should be laughing about it / Making the most of the true British climate" as Tim Wanstall's synth-lines bounce like stray beach balls.

Sure, Athlete specialise in big, neon sing-along choruses--see the glimmering "El Salvador", the sprawling wonder of "Beautiful"--but their approach is tempered with a very pretty vulnerability. "Westside" opens with a hushed acoustic lead-in where Pott's cracked, fragile vocal shakily tests out the chorus--"Wherever you look you can see / Everybody wants to be part of the rock scene"--before the song explodes into life. It's the sort of sunny disposition that could almost define a new British climate. Looks like it's turned out nice again. --Louis Pattison

Having followed Athlete from thier start, I perhaps have a more biast view on this album than thier second, thinking it far superior. If you liked Tourist, hopefully you will love this album. This album shows Athlete trying to find themselves, and the result is an album full of completely different songs, all of which are pulled of spectacularly. Sadly I found thier second album (Tourist), though much better produced, much less diverse, they took the 'sound' from the few songs that did well from Vehicles and Animals and repeated it over and over to make quite a dull album, compared to the frivolous and different sounds of the songs shown in Vehicles and Animals.

Hopefully Athletes 3rd album will move back to the more experimental music making shown in this album, yet keep the richer and well produced sound of the second album.

I can honestly say that there isn't one song that i didn't enjoy- I still can't take it out of the car!!

This is a fairly good album, its on of those albums which are nice, light hearted, and easy to listen to. We all have these types of albums in our collections so dont judge it too harshly. Yes, it isn't a master piece, this isn't the new dark side of the moon, but if you want somthing to listen to and not that fussed then this album is great for it. All songs are very easy to go back to again and again, it is a bit like britpop but slightly modernised, although not in the ranks of the great blur or pulp. So give it a try, its not everyone's cuppa tea but arwell a fairly decent attempt

i do like athelete but i cant help thinking im liying to myself wen i fink this album is great! its like wen u hear snippets of the chorus the music sounds catchy and bright but its not like that all the way through and i found it a bit bland. sort of like keane but with guitars.

if ure given it by all means take it but i wudnt go out and buy it if ure into indie/rock ull find this far too much like "pop" by no means a masterpeice.

Are you one of the people who have just recently followed Athlete and looking at V&A and deciding whether or not to buy it. If You Are, BUY IT!!!!!

This album in my opinion is slightly better than Tourist and is a totally different album.

This is catchy Quirky Pop at its greatest . You will be singing ths ongs for ages.

Every song at first sounds familiar but when you listen properly you can hear the great talent these guys have!!!