The Wombats - Proudly Present... a Guide to Love, Loss and Desperation (14th Floor)
1/5
By: Alex Lee Thomson
At times you wonder why you bother, at times you wonder why you care, and at times you just wish you could have back the hour that you've wasted listening to trashy, teenybopper indie pop. Honestly, whilst you might be able to momentarily overlook the disrespect that oozes from the single 'Let's Dance To Joy Division', you can't overlook that even something of this low calibre is somehow, unbelievably, the best track on the record.
Like a lot of artists, The Wombats have made a short career for themselves as indie mainstream (a contradiction in terms that is sadly the state of play right now) darlings, armed with a few cheap choruses expanded into half formed songs, but they've failed to create a record that sounds complete. Pleasure doesn't come to us from talking about a record in this way, and gosh knows it's not what we're about, but what's so infuriating about The Wombats is that so many will treat this as the work of a proper, worthy band with real, direct songs that will stand the test of time. Yet the Wombats offer nothing but triviality, have nothing beyond mere novelty to show, certainly not on this release. They're like a joke that nobody's laughing at which has miraculously continued to be told.
Blame phenomena such as this for the A&R frenzy that circles mediocre bands and ignores talented artists because they don't 'fit' in with the throwaway scene. Blame records like these, and the way we're handed them, for the dumbing down of the next generation of songwriters. And, most importantly and dishearteningly of all, blame it for the wave of Wombat sound-a-likes that will follow in 2008 and spread more messages of useless predictability and pointlessness on plastic.
Stream two tracks from 'Proudly Present... a Guide to Love, Loss and Desperation' HERE.
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