Real Estate is Dodgy's fourth studio album and first without singer Nigel Clarke. Britpop's most Breakfast Show-friendly combo, Dodgy were always a great way to start the day, toe-tapping tunes like the unremittingly cheerful "Good Enough" and "Staying out for the Summer" inspiring the hungover to leap forth from the duvet and rip open the curtains with a zest for life. And then, in 1998, when Nigel departed for a solo career, no label would touch them and it seemed the sun wouldn't be shining for Dodgy anymore. Wrong. Newly swelled to a five-piece fronted by gravel-voiced David Bassett, Dodgy's latest studio album arrives bankrolled by the band's fanbase, who stumped up the cash for the album's entire recording budget. And even if the record doesn't sell a bean, those fans have been paid back with interest. Dodgy may have lost some of that boyish twinkle, but when faced with such maturely competent fare as the melodic white-soul of "I Need a Little Lifting", The Faces bar-room rock of "Vision" and new classic "Rag Doll" (played like a depressed version of Madness) it's hard to grumble about the "good old days". The albums' only blot is the experimental and thoroughly ridiculous "You Shouldn't Wear Shorts--a sort of Madchester version of the Bonzo Dog Band peforming Blur's Parklife--which well and truly catches Dodgy with their trousers down. --Kevin Maidment