Hands up if you remember the Wombats. Their First Album, 'A Guide to Love, Loss and Desperation' reached number 11 in the UK album charts in 2007, and with its catchy, fun hypnotic pop sound it was an enjoyable album. Some would say that it slightly lacked in lyrical depth with its songs about being infatuated with your GP (EW MRSA!) or being infatuated with a stripper (EW herpes) but that was part of its beauty. When I learnt recently that lead singer Matthew Murphy has recently completed rehabilitation owing to an addiction to anti depressants which plagued the first album I was curious as to the effect that this would have on the second album.
The result is a slightly confused album, combining songs about girls and fast cars (Girls/Fast Cars) with songs about anti depressants (Anti-D). Fortunately the latter is a metaphorical love song where Murphy compares himself to an anti depressant but it still somewhat kills the mood of the opening three cheerful tracks. The album does have some highlights, with the electro pop sound of 'Tokyo (Vampires and Wolves)' and the anthemic sing-along chorus of 'Schumacher the Champagne', but overall it seems like most of the album is spent merely padding out the few good tracks . None of the songs are particularly bad, but many are painfully average. Quirky and fun the album may be, but memorable it certainly isn't.
6/10
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