With their debut album, Colour It In, out next month on Fiction Records, the five boys who have been friends since childhood, are supposedly set for great things.

Awaiting the album's release, The Maccabees, who took their name from the Bible, are feeling twitchy but satisfied. "It's a pretty big deal for us,"

says bassist Rupert Jarvis. "I'm really scared about it but we're happy with it."

Singer Orlando Weeks adds, "Felix (the band's guitarist) says your first album should chart your progression in a way, to show where you started, where you end up and suggest where you might go. I think it does that."

Recorded with three producers, including Stephen Street (The Smiths, Blur, Kaiser Chiefs) the album is meant to sound, "like the best Maccabees show you could have been to".

"It's a very live sound," continues Orlando. "We were quite particular about getting the right performance and having the right atmosphere."

The band's shows have become notorious, due in part to last year's gig at the Concorde, which sparked a mini riot and saw them temporarily banned from playing Brighton venues.

But the Brighton-via-Clapham band said the situation was regrettable and have put that night firmly behind them.

The Maccabees landed in Brighton when Orlando came down to study art. The move paid off and earlier this year they were signed to Polydor's Fiction label, home to Ian Brown and Snow Patrol.

After a prestigious support slot with The Strokes at the Brighton Centre came the release of breakthrough single Latchmere, an ode to their local swimming pool, which had DJs, including Steve Lamaq, professing admiration.

Influenced by "late Sixties comedy rockers Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band, television cricket coverage and growing up in south London", The Maccabees formed in 2003, having met through school and football.

Quintessentially British "but not laddish", one excitable music paper proclaimed them "the best new band in Britain!" but they are keeping their feet on the ground. "It's a lovely comment but absurd," says Orlando.

"It's one person's opinion and impossible to live up to because there are so many new bands around. It's great - but crazy."

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