The latest in a long line of hyped young things from New York City, the Cloud Room are more akin to the National than the Strokes – they’re going to fly under the radar for the most part, exciting a scant few.

Single and opening track “Hey Now Now” is certainly a brilliant beginning; in fact, if the Cloud Room were capable of keeping that sort of momentum up and going throughout the course of their self-titled debut then they’d just about have a pop masterpiece on their hands.

Instead, much of the Cloud Room flits between strong rockers and plaintive poppers, but it never truly excels at anything – the sound is strong, but the lack of punch to much of it – “Hey Now Now” and “Waterfall” notably excepted – make it anything but a slice of the brilliance the band may be capable of in the future.

So where do the Cloud Room fit? Are they an indie rock band or one about to cross over to major acceptance by the general public? Based on their self-titled debut album, it would seem the band themselves are unsure. It straddles that awkward middle ground, with songs like “Sunlight Song” coming across as insular, but then “The Hunger is as open as anything on the new Franz Ferdinand record. The Cloud Room show tremendous promise on this release…now it’s just a matter of bringing that promise fully across.