This lot ain't household names, but they deserve to be and 'Hey! Hello! Too!' should be the vehicle on which they do it.

Hey! Hello! were always meant to have a female fronting them, Victoria Liedtke offered snarlingly sweet sounds on the band's self-titled debut before being swiftly jettisoned. Her replacement, Hollis Mahady, recorded 'Hey! Hello! Too!' before she too suddenly disappeared – this time on the eve of the album's release. So, with that version already in the possession of Ginger Wildheart's loyal Pledgers, the workaholic musician delayed its release and held auditions to find the band's third singer, with no apparent success.

Hence the first surprise that greets you as take two of 'Hey! ....' hits your ears is that the vocal tones that greet you sure ain't Wildheart, or indeed Mahady. Instead, a gaggle of guests – Emily Lee, Givvi Flynn, Cat Southall, Laila K, Eloise Kerry, Vicky Jackson and Christina Maynard – work on a rotation policy to bring the female touch Wildheart always envisioned for his Pop Punkers. With scant information to help, I won't embarrass myself by playing guess who sang where; suffice to say that Wildheart has chosen wisely indeed.

The same is true for his permanent band members, Ai Sugiyama adding a female thump to the drums, Toshi a blokey boing on bass while The Rev has a religiously rollicking time on guitar. Sound-wise things have been considerably beefed-up from the debut. There's a fuller, richer sound clobbering you over the head, but not at the expense of the good time melodies and hooks that are this band's trademark.

'Kids' covers all the bases in one fell swoop; razor sharp guitars buzz-sawing their way through a shout-it-out chorus while casually keeping one of the riffs of the year hostage, only releasing it into the wild for a few bars. The thump-clang drums and tight vocal harmonies of 'This Ain't Love' is just so much fun that the government must be discussing a ban, while the multi-linguals (well they do have two band members from the land of the rising sun) take on the originally Hollis-fronted single 'Automatic Love', another surely under threat from Theresa May and company. Add in cool re-workings of the uber-catchy Wildheart cut 'Body Parts' and 1976 Sailor number 'Glass Of Champagne' and there's so much here to love that it's embarrassing.

This lot ain't household names, but they deserve to be and 'Hey! Hello! Too!' should be the vehicle on which they do it.

Steven Reid