It's astonishing to think that nobody has used The Virgins as a band name before now, but perhaps laying claim to the moniker works against these New Yorkers, in a way. Far from marking virgin territory with their sound, Donald Cumming, Wade Oates and Nick Zarin-Ackerman plunder from an all-too-familiar well of influences for their debut album; indeed, just one look at the trio (scruffy demeanours, ironic '80s t-shirts and battered Converse trainers) should tell you all you need to know.

Don't make the mistake of writing them off based on either of those largely irrelevant facts, though. There may be a surfeit of bands of their ilk on the scene at the moment, but most of them are lacking an Elvis Costello fixation - something which gives The Virgins an 'angle', if not sets them apart from their peers. It's mostly Cumming's nasal warble that pays homage to the English rocker, but there's also a new wave thread woven into 'The Virgins' that proffers an element of distinctively British pomp and bounce, if not originality ('She's Expensive', 'Rich Girl').

Strange, then, that the two best songs are both tracks you'd expect to hear on the soundtrack to Miami Vice. 'Teen Lovers' is a terrific cheesefest with big synths and a sappy chorus, and the equally dated-sounding (but no less enjoyable for it) 'Murder''s unusual chord changes provide a welcome change from the dull sub-Strokes scuffed jangle-pop of 'Hey Hey Girl' and 'Radio Christiane'.

All in all, 'The Virgins' is an acceptable debut, but with no real 'wow' factor, it's perhaps come four or five years late to make any lasting impression on the scene in 2009.