On hearing that the planet’s latest indie offering was a duo comprised of Eric Ronick (Panic! At the Disco, Ambulance Ltd) and some other guy I’d never even heard of, I must admit I was less than excited. Or to be more accurate – not interested in the slightest.

Black Gold formed way back in 2006 when Eric Ronick and Than Luu met on a tour with the Killers and Ambulance Ltd; from there they started writing tracks for an album that has taken them until 2009 to release. Took their time didn’t they? So when it came to listening to Rush to for the first time I was all for condemning it to the indie graveyard. Surprisingly it’s really rather good.

Well firstly Black Gold are not your average indie band. They don’t, in fact, sound very indie at all. Single Plans And Reveries is reminiscent of Flaming Lips mixed with orchestra rock. If it weren’t for the obvious difference in the vocals this could easily pass for a Format song; it’s catchy pop-rock with a disco edge – utterly surprising and incredibly addictive.

Equally as good is Breakdown. Funky guitar with a rap-like verse followed by a pure pop chorus, it’s not exactly your regular mix for a song yet, strangely, it works beautifully. But that’s not to say this band can’t handle some good old hard-hitting rock music, just listen to What You Did which has a guitar heavy chorus that the White Stripes would be envious of.

Silver and Canyon are softer, acoustic feeling songs and previous single Detroit shows this band can do electronic as well as any other band. Black Gold are a hendecagon; eleven sides of surprise songs and genre mixing. Many of the songs on this album, in theory, shouldn’t work but hearing is believing. Rush is a complex album encasing as many genres as possible in just 50 minutes.

Black Gold might be an odd combo with little musical focus who take years to get their album out, but this album is rather fabulous and definitely worth the wait. Who knew such gems came in such unexpected places?