The Chapman Family – Burn Your Town

It’s unfortunate that Joy Division are continually denigrated as the template for disaffected artists such as The Chapman Family. This lot make White Lies look comparatively profound. “I don’t understand the blandness of modern society and culture,” lead vocalist Kingsley Chapman bemoans, “I honestly think I hate everything.” Goddamn it, to hate everything is just painfully mundane, it’s all about specifics. A dour baritone voice doesn’t make you Ian Curtis if you have nothing to say as you impertinently strangle yourself onstage with a microphone cord.

Whilst She Didn’t Know and A Certain Degree bear some semblance of a wretched sentiment, the album’s spine – including angst-ridden singles All Fall, Kids and Anxiety – is as drab as generic. A platter of platitudes, Burn Your Town is an insipid record short on substance. Lyricism satiated with an abundance of clichés, puerile connotations of darkness and despair, and yet an astounding absence of vigour for a band supposedly bred from ‘the fertile black soil’ of The Cure’s Pornography.