A FORMER Southampton schoolboy is top of the pops after his band stormed the UK album chart.

Former Cantell School pupil Joe Newman is celebrating after his band Alt-J saw their second album This Is All Yours go straight in to number one in the official UK album chart last night.

The album is the follow-up to the band’s Mercury Music Prize-winning debut An Awesome Wave.

Joe is part of a prestigious musical Cantell School alumni, which boasts Coldplay drummer Will Champion, and Jack Wylie and Milo Fitzpatrick of the fellow Mercury Music Prizenominated band Portico Quartet.

Alt-J vocalist and keyboard player Gus Unger-Hamilton said: “We’re over the moon to see our album at number one.

“'It was never something we thought we’d achieve, but it’s our fans who have put us there, so we owe this to them.”