The Automatic - Tear the Signs Down

What's that coming over the hill, is it a monster, is it a monster? No, it's only the return of the rather pointless Welsh band behind one of the most annoyingly inescapable songs of 2006. Riding in on the piss-stained coattails of the Kaiser Chiefs and their student disco kin, The Automatic were a homogenized, NME-crafted non-band from their inception. But now, freshly dropped by their label, can they kick off the commercial shackles and pull off a creative volte-face? In a word, no. Tear the Signs Down, which follows 2008's This is a Fix (who knew?), is neutered punk, lobotomized indie, whitewashed rock. Tracks like upcoming single Run and Hide still plough relentlessly through the same old power chords and adolescent riffage, and that's one of the better cuts. It's difficult to imagine even their core audience (the Hollyoaks demographic) getting excited about this confused, weak album, and the quicker this monster is subdued the better. [Nick Mitchell]