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TRACK: Private Affair

WHO: High-school dropout former models The Virgins.

WHAT: Cocksure lad rock, Noo Yoik-style.

THE HYPE: “A step above their dance-pop peers” - Filter magazine

WE SAY: There’s a sense that The Virgins might just have been made in a test tube, boy-band style, such is their archetype-adhering nature. Residing in Wrong Side Of The Tracks, Manhattan, they do their best to sustain New York’s rep as the cool band factory. Dripping in attitude, they follow in the unwashed footsteps of the Ramones and the Strokes, despite the fact that their lead singer is called Donald. In fact, singer Donald Cummings’ mannered stage presence has seen him compared to Mr Casablancas. Oh, it’s all too well planned. Maybe I’m jumping to conclusions because he used to be a model and their stuff has been used in the Sex And The City-lite TV show Gossip Girl. Well, it’s an easy mistake to make.

But the thing is, the music doesn’t expose them as frauds. A perfectly formed spiky post-punk charmer in tight jeans that typifies The Virgins’ prediliction for singing about iffy relationships with damaged goods women, its power-pop chorus hints at the majesty of The Killers (before they started sitting on the veranda in a rocking chair chewing tobacco on Sam’s Town) and points to an ideal world where Hard-Fi can do four-to-the-floor guitar beats without being quite so irritating. As an extra treat, they’re just as adept at slowing it down and show us their best moves – keep an ear out for Rich Girls on their Myspace, a can’t-be-arsed dirty funk croon that is audio seduction for the Jack Daniels set.

Still, the boys know their rock history, as their forthcoming self-titled debut album proves. “You only get one chance to have a self-titled record,” explains Cumming, unaware of the fact that Peter Gabriel actually did it four times. “You can do it later, but it’s so lame to do that.”

IF YOU ONLY NEED TO KNOW ONE THING: The band once had the honour of opening for Patti Smith at Paris Fashion week.

WHERE CAN I GET MY HANDS ON IT: Private Affair is out now on Atlantic.

FIND MORE: www.myspace.com/thevirginsnyc

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