In 2005 Children Collide released We Three, Brave And True, a six-track EP that didn't so much announce the group's arrival as kick the door down, featuring the brilliant We Are Amphibious, the little b-side that could - and did, turning, reinvigorated, into the a-side of 2006's equally impressive Glass Mountain Liars EP. Now it's 2008 and the band is pleased to present their debut long player, The Long Now.

This is a record that crackles with smarts and buzzes along with the undeniable sense of a band that knows where it's going, a band that sees your lazy references and questionable stylistic decisions and raises them - into another stratosphere - as Johnny (vocals/guitars), Heath (bass) and Ryan (drums) create a tumbling maelstrom of rock in excelsis. It's a record with its eye on the future and its feet in the present and its imagination crossing astral planes throughout it all.

When asked what he hopes listeners will absorb from The Long Now, Johnny replies, "Maybe some kind of ear infection. Or a curious interest in the lost science of phrenology. Maybe they'll think twice before they fill their cars up with petrol and try running on milk instead. Perhaps they will become better people and start dedicating their lives to some philanthropic obsession after only one listen. Possibly people will hear this record and decide it is time to move on the governments of the world and stop the senseless mining of Martian polar ice-caps."

Phrenology aside (it's the pseudoscience of reading a person's skull to determine their personality, don't you know), Children Collide have created an album that is as much a coming together of everything they've been working towards as it is an introduction to the band - which is precisely how the band wanted it to turn out. "We really wanted to treat this debut record as an introduction to the band," says Johnny. "We had to try not to be selfish about it. There were a lot of songs we wrote right before the album that didn't make it, not because they weren't great songs, but more so we would have somewhere to go afterwards and so the songs on the album could compliment each other and provide a doorway into what we are about. So yes, welcome to remedial Children Collide, study hard and you'll graduate to general Children Collide on album #2."

The Long Now starts now.