Pairing Monkey Alex Turner and professional Rascal Miles Kane, Shadow Puppets is the result of a firm friendship formed when the Arctic Monkeys toured with Kane's previous group, The Little Flames. While mixing back stage, the pair were so inspired by listening to the likes of Scott Walker, early Bowie and David Axelrod, that they hatched a plan.

The result, 'The Age Of The Understatement', is an album of 12 full-blooded songs; bold and brassy; full of drama, wit and melody, that source the past but avoid falling into pastich.

It's a youthful record, full of life and the sheer pleasure of music making and sounds more than a little as though the pair of 22 year-olds are satisfying an ambition to create an album of Bond themes.

With heavily accented Indie vocals backed by the 22 piece London Metropolitan Orchestra, the effect is extraordinary. Grandiose working-class; ambitious creativity; 'Understatement' does anything but understate the drive and talent of the pair of musical pioneers.

'In My Room' is a perfect example from 'Undertatement.' An unassuming title hides the opulant and unashamedly imperial ode to experiences in a bedroom. It's fun, it's frivolous and it's all done through a sublimely majestic performance that replicates the Monkey's knack for being creative and refusing to be dictated too.

A sense of fifties nostalgia infuses break up anthem 'The Meeting Place,' a soaring, ironically upbeat tune that conflicts beautifully with the heartbreaking lyrics "I'm Sorry I met you Darling, I'm sorry I've left you," to perfectly sum up the turbulent feelings of a break-up.

While the album begins with the frantic and tumultuous cynicism of first release 'The Age of the Understatement,' it ends having slowed to a gentle, nostalgic (for 22 year olds, the lads do seem to have a fondness for the 'good old days') and sadly meandering dream about a lost love.

The journey from frantic energy to subdued melancholy is a natural progression. Never jarring, totally organic, the lads invoke a desire to go back and listen to early to mid Beatles, but by adding their own contemporary style they avoid ever sounding dated.

The layering of both sets of vocals is the epitome of complimentary – slight tone changes are detectable, but often the transition is seemless and the separate elements almost unidentifiable.

If ever there was a vanity pairing destined for success, Shadow Puppets' pairing is it. Insightful lyrics, powerful and unstoppable creativity and a determination to avoid being labeled and boxed in mean that 'Understatement' is an exciting debut album that promises great things to come.

This CD is available to buy now at Woolworths