Know Your Enemy

"Here is a musical world in which everything is exactly as it appears, where a total lack of imagination is viewed not as a crippling hindrance, but a major selling point. ... This is music so afraid to be seen as clever or pretentious, so terrified of doing anything that might conceivably alienate the lowest common denominator, that it ends up crushingly prosaic. ... Some albums offer a mouthwatering smorgasbord of ideas and possibilities. The Ride dishes up meat and potatoes 12 ways."

Alexis Petridis gives Catfish And The Bottlemen's new album the review it deserves (aside, that is, from the brief section suggesting that "you'd have to be exceptionally churlish not to admit that The Ride has its moments"). The tragedy, though, as he acknowledges in the final line of his assessment, is that "meat and potatoes 12 ways" is "clearly ... what thousands of people want to stuff themselves with".

(Thanks to Rob for the link.)