Tiresome. Uninspiring. Unoriginal. Just some of the words that have been used to describe me over the years, but ones that could equally well be applied to this collection of MOR indie from awfully monikered, in-at-the-moment-but-won’t-be-come-the-next-issue-of-NME, Salford two-piece, The Ting Tings.
Now I’m willing to confess that prior to even listening to the album I’d already formulated that pithy opening in my head. However, after thirty-seven uneventful minutes in the company of these ten songs I felt little compulsion to reconsider.
Their sound inspires unfavourable comparisons to the bland, risk-free sound of bands like The Gossip, replete as they are with the same lacklustre attempts at choppy beats, catchy melodies and girl-punk candour.
Even when they try for something a little sweeter the best they can muster is the nauseating sub-Lily Allen ‘Traffic Light’ which is close to unbearable. Katie White’s vocals are pretty unassuming and often unassumingly pretty, which makes for particularly unconvincing effect when she tries to channel her inner rock-bitch during the functionless funk of ‘Shut Up and Let Me Go’.
Admittedly latest single ‘That’s Not My Name’ has been rattling round my cranium for the past couple of days, but honestly that’s not much to go by – I’ve also had the jingle from the ‘I Love Horses Magazine’ advert stuck in my head lately.
Ultimately this is just another offering from the endless cavalcade of identikit indie-poppers that are shoved down the ever grateful gullets of the credibility-seeking scene flitterers that devour this kind of stuff with relish, only to shortly thereafter excrete it into the void without a second thought, greedily awaiting the next musical morsel.
And for that reason I pity them but not quite as much as I would do, had they not produced an album quite so depressingly forgettable. Harumph.
One star.
