I’ve never had to go to Milton Keynes, thanks be to God. I mean, this is a town so duff that not only did it have to nick another place’s football team, but it had the bad taste to nick the worst one in the league. Even the name is awful, being an arbitrary lumping-together of a difficult Puritan poet and the economist most to blame for Britain’s seventies meltdown. Still, the impressive Dave Kirk comes from from there, demonstrating that even this unlovely town can throw up the odd pleasant surprise.

”Waltz in the Air” starts the demo and immediately exemplifies Kirk’s charm. The accompaniment is little more than some delicate Spanish guitar and a well-realised acoustic solo thrown in at the end, but the effect when combined with Kirk’s limpid, reedy voice is rather bewitching. The tone of the lyrics is a long way from the usual “poor little me” school of singer-songwriting; instead the song has a powerful elegiac feel, displaying a gratitude for the sensations of a past love affair, rather than the conventional focus on the unpleasant aftermath.

”I’ll never let you down” is equally disarming. The first two verses of this warm, soulful ballad contain some of the loveliest singing I’ve heard in months; Kirk at his best seems to have a limitless range, at times sounding like an English Art Garfunkel. The third verse wobbles a bit, however, due to a tad too much ornamentation. There’s no real need, as Kirk’s melodies are generally strong enough without him going all Christine Aguilera on us.

”Sunday Snow”, despite some evocative lyrics doesn’t hold the level, being conventional jazz blues and has that kind of erotic complacency which bugs me about the likes of Jack Johnston (apparently all twelve songs on his debut album were written about his wife: I mean, ten out of ten for morality, pal, but not so many for invention!). Like Neil Young, whoever is playing lead guitar on this track shouldn’t. And the handclaps are cheesy and out of time. Apart from that, fab!

“Broad Street” pushes the demo back up thanks to some fine acoustic guitar playing and an admirably grown-up attitude towards cheating girlfriends. Whereas some singer-songwriters would be writing stuff about smoking that bitch like it ain’t no thang, Kirk’s narrator shrugs, mutters “Cosi fan tutti” or words to that effect and saunters coolly off towards the Sheldonian, there no doubt to resume his Greats or PPE studies. Class act.

A highly promising demo then, from a singer who has a potentially wonderful tenor voice, and a writer who can conjure romance and remembrance from a few simple chords. Alchemic.

The Gullivers is a band that has been improving at a pleasing rate over the past couple of years, and yet their development has been entirely qualitative: they’ve improved their knockabout punk pop, but haven’t seen fit to alter the blueprint any. That is, until this new record, which demonstrates just how great they can be, as well as showing up their very real flaws.

What truly knocks us for six is the understated melancholy of opening tune, “Forever”. Yes, it has short vocal lines, and insistent new wave drums, but there’s no hint of the scruffy urchin bluster that made earlier recordings sound like glue-sniffing takes on “You’ve Got To Pick A Pocket Or Two”. In its place we find a mature resignation in the performance, especially the vocals – check the wonderfully world weary way that Mark Byrne intones the hook “This is history”. In their older, Sex Pistols influenced days the band would have declaimed this as a nihilistic statement, whereas now it sounds more like a guilty admission, and is all the stronger for it. In fact, this song is surprisingly beautiful.

“Majesty” continues the high quality, melding the punk music hall feel of earlier Gullivers material (listen to that vintage Stranglers bassline) with their newfound introspection: an emotive synthesised french horn part suddenly gives way to a surprise bumpalong chorus, with conversationally chanted vocals that remind us most unexpectedly of Shakespeare’s Sister! It doesn’t sound a thing like them, of course, but it is a decent tune.

Sadly, “The Fun We Have…” sees them lose it completely. Never the tightest band in the county, it’s the vocals that put many people off The Gullivers, Byrne displaying such a heroic inability to hold down a melody he sometimes sounds like an effete Mark E. Smith. Not only does he fail monumentally to stay in tune on this track, but the backing vocals sound like someone half-arsedly calling the cat from the studio door. Add to that a loping rhythm that plods along like a wooden-legged postman and you’ve got a track that reveals all the band’s faults and none of their charm.

Things improve slightly with “Chemicals” (hang on a mo, wasn’t the last EP called Chemicals, even though this track wasn’t on it? And this EP doesn’t even have a name, though it does have a photo of some suburban budgies). The contrast between a bouncy handclap and brittle guitar intro and a dissonant march is neat, but should probably be played slightly more tidily to really work, plus the vocals, whilst better than the previous track, don’t come close to the wonderful ennui of the opener. Still, the line “Your absence of evidence is not evidence for absence” is one of those pop moments that seem to carry much more weight of meaning that they ought, and put us in mind briefly of early Wire lyrics, even if the music drifts from our consciousness pretty soon afterwards.

So, an uneven record, but one containing the best track The Gullivers have yet committed to wax, and one displaying hints for a very interesting future, even as it clings on to clunky remnants of the past: the rough and tumble playground feel is departing, but The Gullivers are still tottering a tiny bit in their grown up clothes. Fuck it, we don’t want to end the review on a bad note – let’s play “Forever” again and let its wan, autumnal half-smile win us over once more.