Credit: Found On Internet

6 June, London’s Bush Hall

Is it too late to sneak an extra question on to the general studies A’ Level paper for I have the perfect one?

The Shortwave Set are a band brimming with style but with little substance? Discuss.

The core of the band, Swedish singer Ulrika Bjorne, guitarist and songwriter Andrew Petitt and programming whiz David Farrell, certainly seem to be taking their savoir-faire seriously.

As they ghosted out of the wings on to the stage, it was clear they had taken a time machine - not the wretched Hammersmith and City Line - to transport them to Bush Hall.

Surely The Shortwave Set with their beatnik attire have been plucked straight out of the Sixties? It’s him from Crosby, Young, Stills and Nash, her from Jefferson Airplane with wotisname from The Band.

It would be easy to be sucked in by the nostalgia conjured by sonically soaring The Shortwave Set if it weren’t for Farrell’s hooky samples.

Crouched stage right, it is Farrell who makes “Is it any wonder” swing along with the sound of Portishead, Zero Seven and Air bumping into each other at a key party.

As well as Farrell’s sampler, The Shortwave Set’s signature is also inked with their love of, often unnecessary, gadgetry.  Throughout the 30-minute set the crowd grappled with the harmonica, megaphone, a jangling box, jawharp, slide guitar and melodica.

It did not take long for the confused inserts of sound to distract from the core melodies. By the third song – the brilliantly gentle, lovelorn “Repeat To Fade” - ominous murmurings had begun.

The Shortwave Set’s new material worryingly only added to the bemusement. “Blah Blah Blah” was stifled by a commercial, break-beat akin to The Go Team and The Streets. “No Social” then leapt backwards into rolling drums and heavy layering borrowed from Phil Spector.

The Shortwave Set’s lack of on-stage chemistry is another cause for concern.

Ulrika, who plays the melodica like a long, French cigarette, has perfected the Iron Maiden routine to such an extreme that she fails to interact with her band-mates or the audience.

The band, whose debut album “The Debt Collector,” received a low-key release through Independiente last year, have a stash of pleasant, melodic songs. The fact that I could hum each one at will for days afterwards shows they are subtly addictive.