Music

In much the same way as my sense of direction is rubbish and my spatial co-ordination not great, my brain is clearly wired so as to make liking indie pop technically impossible. In which case –  cue advancing army of angry Zutons fans – it could be argued that I’m not the best person to appraise their second album. I do, however, have ears and it’s surely The Zutons’ duty to convince everyone (me included) of their worth.

The five piece first bounced into view alongside fellow Scousers The Coral on Liverpool’s fêted Deltasonic label. Their debut album, ‘Who? Killed…The Zutons’ earned them a Mercury nomination and has shifted an impressive 600,000 copies. The follow-up is essentially a beefier and more confident serving of the same – muscly, high-energy pop that takes its cues as much from mariachi as Merseybeat, equally from The Doors and Dexy’s. Yes, it looks quite promising on paper. On the stereo, however, ‘Tired Of Hangin’ Around’ sounds like nothing so much as Cast with a bad case of ADD.

It all goes rather downhill from the opening title track, which boasts a lurching, Radiohead-styled riff and sulky undertow. It sinks via ‘It’s The Little Things We Do’–  a cack-handed crack at Razorlight’s boho punk – and ‘Valerie’. That song’s singular lyric, ‘I miss your ginger hair,’ (!) earned the LP another star, but basically it’s a weak, Britpop-tinted take on The Strokes. By the album’s halfway mark, vocalist David McCabe’s rough, strained tone starts to chafe against the nerves; come ‘How Does It Feel?’ – where it’s offset with some ghastly retro fretwork – mental dead-leg has set in. Elsewhere, The Zutons try their hand at Glitter-y stomp (‘Why Won’t You Give Me Your Love?’) and Calexico’s manly romanticism (‘Secrets’). All of which suggests that although the madly energetic ‘Tired…’ is trying for stylistic promiscuity, it’s rather all over the place like the proverbial dog’s breakfast. And we all know how the dog’s breakfast ends up, don’t we?