Cast your mind back to 2005. While A&R; men the length and breadth of the land were busy scouring the post-Franz landscape of Glasgow in search of the next great new Scottish band, what they sought lay a couple of hundred miles to the North East, in an oft-overlooked part of the country.

Musically, the history of Dundee isn't exactly littered with success stories. Indeed, of the city's two most notable additions to the pop canon - The Associates and The Average White Band - one's tale ended in tragedy, while the other specialized in soul-funk. But all that is about to change with the advent of The View, the city of discovery's newest and greatest white hopes. Four alarmingly young (average age: 18) friends from the Dryburgh area of the city, The View are comprised of Kyle, Keiren, Peter and Steve and formed from the ashes of an old covers band they formed at school, playing everything from Squeeze to The Sex Pistols. After deciding just over a year ago that their ambitions stretched considerably further than hawking 'Up The Junction' around the pubs and clubs of Dundee, they began writing and rehearsing their own songs in the backroom of their local, The Bayview Bar (hence the band's name). When the band were thrown out of there - "I can't remember exactly why," recalls Peter, "But I think it had something to do with Kyle riding a scooter along the bar," - they decamped to nearby venue The Doghouse, where they began living a "Monkees-like" existence, and the songs they were writing slowly began to take shape. And what songs. From the ramshackle pop nuggets like �The Don' and �Superstar Tradesman' to the razor-sharp melodies of the ska-inflected �Skag Trendy' , they may be grounded in the gutters of Dundonian council estates but nonetheless gaze intently at the stars. Marrying the forked tongue wit and guttersnipe humor of The Libertines with the melodic nous of The Buzzcocks and Oasis, each one is a mini-anthem in waiting, and none more so than �Superstar Tradesman's singalong tale of council-estate drudgery.

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