When The Dead 60s arrived on the scene in 2005 they were somewhat of an anomaly. They had nothing to do with the then fad for all things new wave, rejecting angular guitars in favour of super heavy reggae grooves, booming dub echoes and wired up punk energy. They were a band from Liverpool who sounded nothing like anything else Liverpool had produced before, who eschewed the Fab Four worship of their geographical contemporaries in favour of The Clash, King Tubbie and The Specials. Signed to scouser indie label Deltasonic (The Coral, The Zutons), and managed by US heavyweight Q prime (Red Hot Chilli Peppers, Metallica), The Dead 60s were a band more about "rhythm and shouting" than about melody. A band who could hard-wire the paranoid skank of A Certain Ratio, "follow the tick-tick-tick/ At the heart of the nation", and deliver a pin-sharp commentary on the world around them in terms that lend themselves to being sprayed on the walls of any English city centre.

Needless to say their arrival did not go unnoticed. Their eponymous debut album was critically acclaimed and certified gold, while their first single Riot Radio became the the third most played song on US alternative radio in 2005 (behind only Coldplay and White Stripes). Film director John Hillcoat (who aside from working on a number of feature films has repeatedly worked with Nick Cave), asked to direct their first video, while the NME dubbed them 'The 21st century Specials' marking them out as pioneers in the Ska revival scene of the summer of 2005.

Fast forward two years and The Dead 60s are set to release their second album. Recorded not in Liverpool this time, but in New York based Noise Studio, and produced by producer-in-residence there David Kahne, (New Order, Regina Spektor, Fishbone, The Strokes), Time To Take Sides is a move on from the "nihilistic punk with an Arabian sounding Eastern disco edge" of the band's first album. The songs, like those on the first album, were worked out on stage. This time though the stages were on an American tour rather than a UK one, and it would appear from the melody that has crept into the new songs that the crowds there wanted more than just vibe. There is still the sloganeering of the last set - you can take a band out of the identikit, booze-sodden concrete English town that it came from, but you can't take the booze-sodden concrete English town out of the band - but where once was just lyrics and beats there now are chords. What once sounded so tightly cropped now comes from a wider angle.

The result? A candid and emotional album packed with anthems for 'the beat generation' and infectious singles for the radio.