Mystery Jets/ Serotonin

Mystery Jets
Serotonin
(Rough Trade)

There are a few clues from the off that this is going to be a Big Summer Album. Firstly, look at the name. Serotonin is the chemical in our brains that makes us feel happy – and it’s usually nowhere to be found during that dastardly thing called winter. Secondly, what’s that on the cover? It's the Mystery Jets in their bathroom, and one of them's reading a newspaper nude on the toilet! Nude I say! What a scandalous and entirely summery activity.
As you’d expect then, this record feels like an open-air disco in the South of France, with the kind of party-or-die urgency that comes with knowing you're flying home in the morning.
'Flash A Hungry Smile' will make you do exactly that; it stomps along like one of the pop songs on Bowie’s ‘Low’, pulling back the clouds to reveal a toothbrush-fresh melody. Later, 'Show Me The Light' feels like ABBA in Hawaii, while if the single 'Dreaming of Another World' can't cheer you up this summer… then you are Skeletor.
Touching down for a perfect landing, the record comes to a crooning, swooning climax with 'Lorna Doone', a rare example of an entirely cheese-free anthem, and proof that the Mystery Jets have far too much Serotonin in their brains. At least if everyone downloads this album illegally, they could bottle the stuff and sell it to stay alive.
If you're not going to a festival this year, do yourself a favour and have one in your living room: get this record.