Swedish. Quiet Is The New Loudish. These are things that might spring to mind when you see the sleeve of this album, featuring, first things first: A-grade design, clean and sparse, digi-pack with nice cardboard which must've cost a tidy stack; secondly, the blonde girl on the cover, looking like she?s had her favourite shoes trampled by a bulldozer; and thirdly, the photos of the four band members inside, complete with two dubious hairstyles and one very disarmingly placed hand-on-chin.

That's the look, like the name 'Deluxe', which creates expectations of white chocolate. Press play and, amazingly, you actually get white chocolate.

This CD has been lying next to the Samsung for over two months now. I've probably listened to it twenty times in those two months. Initially, I was firm on the idea that I wasn't going to like it much; it's just not my kind of thing. Yet somehow, I've listened to it over and over. The sounds here are so immediately pleasing, calming drag-me-alongy that you can't resist it, much like a chocolate whirlpool with toasted coconut and stuff... the sheer pleasure of it all.

They're from Durban, lead singer Thorsten Fehsenfeld (more Swedes?) is blessed with a voice nothing like the manly drone of a Nick Cave. He's the opposite of Nick Cave.

The only voice it reminds me of is Andrew Montgomery of Geneva when he's singing "Museum Mile" and on the album 'Weather Underground', but he's a bit more falsetto, for what I know of voices. High and dry, one feels like saying, because it's one of those thin, yet soulful, high voices, strung up there like a spider's thread in the sky, tying all the pieces together.

The music's good too, produced by the band and David "used-to-be-called-Dave" Birch, a lushness wrung from the moody ends of simple instruments, with only a couple of tracks ? such as the yearning, blissed out "Let You Go" ? aided and abetted by strings. Here things briefly recall Turin Brakes in their calmer moods (with reference specifically to the hidden title track off 2003's 'Ether Song').

Another review I read compared them to Badly Drawn Boy. As I said, I've listened to this CD a lot and the only vague vestiges of BDB-sound I can find here is the woody intro to the this-sounds-so-good-it's-like-I?ve-heard-it-somewhere-before "Inside" ? an insecure boy in a crazy womanworld pop tune if you wanted one.

For the rest, Deluxe is nowhere near as sonically or lyrically adventurous as BDB. So don't come knocking here if you're looking for loopy Beatles-meets-Stereolab. It's not here. Neither does Deluxe ever make music anything as interesting as aforementioned Turin Brakes and Geneva.

The same review called them the greatest South African band since Bright Blue. I'm sure even the band ? complimented as they might feel ? won't take this too seriously, for they have nothing to say politically, unlike Bright Blue.

Deluxe is simply a very welcome addition to the South African music scene, with a package, sound and album which could make them big in a range of places, if they get lucky. For what sounds so mighty and bold and pretty here, might disappear if you throw it to the British, who are an unscrupulous lot and are looking for something "new" all the time, even if it's the same-old just dressed up in a skirt and a strap-on babyface.

"Stop, Drop & Roll" is another favourite track of mine, Aidan Cornhill (I think) riding it out with some nifty electric guitar stabs over the nice easy-to-file refrain of "lost control".

By "It's Alright" you should be convinced: it's perfect student shag-music. This is to play for girls to show you're a sensitive bloke, really. The kind of music that, in 1997, would've had to be a ballad (called "The Freshmen") by The Verve Pipe, because back then there wasn't a Deluxe, there was just Lithium and the Nude Girls before they became Greatest Hitters, and just a heck of a lot of testosterone, really.

Yes, she will fall for you, you just have to persist. And play her this kind of song. Girls have Post-its stuck to the inside of their skulls to remind them to trigger feelings of "strange attraction to study partner" and "switch from platonic to romantic intent" whenever they hear music like Deluxe.

I hope.

There?s a very small chance that Thorsten's voice might irritate you ? our ears aren't made the same way ? in which case you're referred to the new Robin Auld album, which is a different kind of thing and will make you catch a different kind of woman ? but then again, you're probably a different kind of man anyway ? and if you don't catch her, learn how to lose with pride, or at least, catch and release with a smile.

But for the most part, this is pure pop genius. Maybe too much of the same thing, but that's never really hurt, except for those who once went too far, ignoring the line when they stepped over it.

The ultra-slowness of "Headlights" is a good closer ? the pacing, ie the track order is also exemplary here ? to the album, which introduces us to a band with much promise. Let's hope they can stick around for a few years, make a few more albums, harden the stubble a bit, maybe grind out some dirtier stuff in years to come. You don't have to sound like the blues to have the blues in your music. You just need to say it and play it like you mean it.

Deluxe ? pretty damn good. Not hard, not the blues yet, but pretty damn good. But I'm going for the Robin Auld-girl.

More at www.homeofdeluxe.com