Future This

It's always a particular disappointment when a band that have made a promising debut album deliver a follow-up that is an absolute dud.

London duo Milo Cordell and Robbie Furze named their group after the classic 1968 album by The Band and their own first offering, 2009's A Brief History Of Love, was an endearing haze of feedback-heavy blissed-out pop. It even spawned a minor hit in the epic yet vulnerable Dominos.

Sadly, second time around Cordell and Furze have eschewed songwriting in favour of tracks assembled from the ground up via electro beats, samples and studio trickery, and the result is a charmless dog's breakfast.

Lumpy, synthesizer-driven tracks like Hit The Gold (Superman) and Give It Up strain for epic status but merely sound thin and needling, while the dreary, grinding choruses of 1313 and Rubbernecking have the turning circle of a small oil tanker.

Put simply, the Big Pink sound like they are trying way too hard, and there is nothing less attractive in pop. It's back to the drawing board for these two.

Album Review by Ian Gittins