The Wombats: 'Jump Into The Fog'

When The Wombats burst onto the scene with the stupid-but-catchy 'Let's Dance To Joy Division' and 'Moving To New York', it was easy to see why they swiftly amassed such a large following. Mixing choppy en vogue post-punk guitar riffs with bouncy earworm melodies, they barged their way onto the radio and telly and straight into the charts. The future of rock 'n' roll it most certainly wasn't, but there will always be a place for amiable, throwaway guitar-pop. Then, last year, they upped the ante with 'Tokyo (Vampires & Wolves)', a synthy teaser for their upcoming second LP that showcased a less obvious, more metaphorical and much more interesting side to the band.

Annoyingly, the three-piece just don't follow through on that growth with 'Jump Into The Fog'. Musically, they're mucking about with keyboards again, but here the plodding rhythm doesn't take the synth riff anywhere. Worse, the words are weighed down with the most tedious everyday drudgery this side of a Hard-Fi record: "It's not a big problem with me love / You don't look that hygienic anyway / I'm only here because / I want to twist the structure of my average day." There's nothing wrong with out-and-out nonsense lyrics, but when songwriters seem to strive for meaning or some sort of deep resonance and fail by such a wide margin, it really can be marrow-suckingly irksome.