The Hoosiers are back! You know them, don’t you? They’re that band who sang they were Worried About Ray, the ones who said goodbye to Mr A, and who some say have a lead singer that looks like Ben Stiller (I’ve never totally noticed it myself, though).

I have been a fan of the Hoosiers ever since I first saw the video to Worried About Ray three summers ago.  At first, I liked the song because it was another to add to the list of songs that mentioned my dad’s name (others being the Lemonheads’ classic It’s A Shame About Ray and the opening theme to Stingray).  However, the more I heard and saw of the band, the more I liked them. They’ve become one of the few bands I liked enough to join their mailing list,  follow on twitter, tune in to every TV and radio show they featured on, buy every magazine they appeared in, seek out every video of them on Youtube, enter every competition related to them and pre-order their album.  Their music made me smile, as did their videos and especially their TV and radio appearances. In short, I blooming love them.

Now, three years later, they make a return with the excellent single Choices. Released today (1st August 2o1o), it sees them move away from the  sound of debut album The Trick To Life (christened “Odd Pop” by its creators) and more towards an electro sound – a sound the band have referred to as “Robo Pop” on their facebook page.  But those fans thinking  that The Hoosiers have totally abandoned what brought them to the public’s attention need not worry, as the song still has the catchy quality of their previous hits.  Even those who have written off the band in the past (and I know there have been a few),  may find themselves enjoying this track a lot ( more than they may want to admit, in fact). Meanwhile, their new album The Illusion Of Safety is released on the 16th August. A sneak preview of this is the b-side to the Choices single available on iTunes, and sounds set to be a cracker, judging by what I’ve heard.

And one more thing, the video to the single is brilliant.