The lineup: Frog Macintyre (bass, vocals), Pearse Macintyre (guitar, vocals), Tom Macintyre (drums), Patrick Fraser Stansbie (keyboards, vocals), Sam James (guitar, vocals).
The background: What was the last proper big-selling British pop group? You know, who played their instruments – including guitars, bass and drums – and sang their own songs, but who weren't rock or indie or soul or grunge but actually, you know, pop? There was a lot of fuss, and a lot of negativity in the air, when Spandau Ballet announced their comeback tour, but whatever you thought of them, there's no denying they were a pop group. They started out as an electro group, became a white funk group, but they achieved success as a pop group. Duran Duran were a pop group. The Human League were a pop group – they might have had avant-garde ideas, but they were a pop group, especially after the two girls joined. After the early-80s, pop groups – four or five-piece bands who are, nevertheless, Not Rock – are few and far between. There have been claims that the Smiths were a pop group because they had sizeable hits, but they weren't, they were an indie band with a big fan-base. They didn't cross over really, did they? Did your mum buy their records? Exactly. They weren't pop. Blur are harder to assess – but even at their most sonically poppy, there's still the whiff of student disco, shambling amateurism and lack of shiny ambition about them. Oasis' mainstream infiltration is totally pop, but all their music is rock, even Wonderwall. The Strokes have sold a few records but they always were and always will be indie. Franz Ferdinand? Hmm, difficult one. But compare them to Roxy Music, who were arty and conceptual as hell but still a pop group, because of their sound and because of the size of their success. Franz mean nothing to the man or woman on the street.
So can you be a pop group without being in the charts? We ask this, in the most long-winded way imaginable, because today's New Band, despite having a terrible – and terribly un-pop – name, make quite a pop sound, if indeed you can be "quite" pop. In the same way that those early-80s groups took alternative ideas and gave them a commercial sheen, Rogues give math rock and new rave a pop makeover. The five-piece from Harrow who comprise three brothers and their two friends, and released their debut single (Not So Pretty) back in March on the same label that issued Little Boots' first record, have got the fidgety rhythms and tricky time signatures of Foals and Klaxons. But they've also got enough hooks and breathy-boy harmonies, twinkly keyboards and buoyant basslines – not to mention the fringes and foppishness – to be considered serious pop contenders. Even though they apparently record their songs in demo form in a garden shed – not a pop place at all – you can imagine those songs being given the sumptuous pop treatment. You can imagine them on the radio. They have pop promise. They've been on tour as support to Iglu and Hartly and are playing the festivals this summer – both pop no-no's – but we won't hold that against them as they make their bid for pop glory.
The buzz: "Like Foals but with more hooks, A&R interest continues to heat up for these Harrow locals whose live show is getting better every time."
The truth: How long can you last as a pop group in waiting? Ask Palladium (RIP). Or ask Rogues, who will have the answer to that question by the end of the year...
Most likely to: Ponder the epistemology of pop after reading this.
Least likely to: Be very rogue-like. What, in Harrow?
What to buy: Rogues' second single MerryGoRound will be released in August on the Dirty Boots label.
File next to: Delphic, Magistrates, Boy Crisis, Duran Duran.
Tomorrow's new band: Mz Bratt.