We Are Scientists: 'Brain Thrust Mastery'

What is it about second albums that bands find so darn tricky? While the rest of us slave our guts out to earn a decent crust, they're off swanning around, bedding fans, supping champagne and getting people to pick blue M&Ms out of the packet for them. Yet, when it comes to getting their heads down for album number two, they suddenly go all pale and wobbly-kneed. However, if any band were to break the dreaded sophomore curse, it would surely be Californian good-time rockers We Are Scientists. Their 2005 debut, With Love and Squalor, was packed like a rush-hour train with danceable guitar hits, while the band's laugh-out-loud interviews had a tendency to show up their po-faced contemporaries. Carefree and without pretension, they couldn't go wrong, right?

Bizarrely and disappointingly, Brain Thrust Mastery proves us wrong, because We Are Scientists seem to have lost their appetite for indie dance-floor destruction. Lead single 'After Hours' hinted that changes were afoot with its Strokes-esque riffing and maudlin, lovelorn chorus, but it's opening track 'Ghouls' that truly rams the message home: this isn't the same band that had us hopping around our bedrooms just a couple of years ago. As swirling guitars and sinister, brooding synths layer over a ticking electro beat, a harassed-sounding Keith Murray cries: "We all recognise that I'm the problem here." The exuberant confidence that characterised their debut is also M.I.A. on the predictable garage-rock of 'Impatience' and slimy, slovenly groove of 'Spoken For'.

This isn't to say that Brain Thrust Mastery is bereft of inspiration. 'Lethal Enforced' finds the band coming over all Duran Duran; with its funky guitars, surging MTV-era choruses and rasping drum machine effects, the stench of Simon Le Bon's hairspray practically exudes from your CD player. Similarly, final track 'That's What Counts' sees WAS rolling up their DJ sleeves and doing their finest Phil Collins impression, especially on the buttery-soft chorus. Alas, when the band stick to their usual mixture of disco beats and fuzzed-up guitars, they seem weighed down by insecurities and a gloomy lyrical palette that eats away at their natural charm.

Though this album is never terrible enough to dishearten WAS disciples completely, its occasional nods towards past glories make it particularly grating to hear the band wallowing, as they frequently do, in self-pity. The Weezer-meets-Jimmy Eat World pop-punk of 'Let's See It' and glam stomping of 'Tonight' show WAS are still capable of whittling off roller-coaster guitar anthems on a whim. Unfortunately, they seem determined to move into new musical pastures, which, though laudable in theory, stutters and all too often crumbles in reality.