We Are Scientists, With Love and Squalor

I'm of two minds about We Are Scientists debut album With Love and Squalor. There's definitely some catchy songs, in particular singles "Nobody Move, Nobody Get Hurt" and "The Great Escape." They know how to compose a catchy guitar riff, they're full of energy, and I can see the kids loving this record. Most of the tracks on here are short, punchy indie pop/rock, and the lyrics are reasonably clever and unusual. All of this is a pretty good thing.

However... this record really sounds like it could have been made 10 years ago. There's not much that's new or groundbreaking on here. At various times they sound like contemporaries The Killers (on "This Scene is Dead" and "It's a Hit"), Hot Hot Heat ("Can't Lose" and "Worth the Wait"), Kaiser Chiefs ("Inaction") and Editors ("Lousy Reputation" and "Nobody Move, Nobody Get Hurt"). And when they don't sound like their peers rehashing old '80's and '90's bands, they sound like those bands themselves, notably 1990's Brit-pop. While I was a huge fan of a lot of Brit-pop bands (Sleeper, Gene, Echobelly, Blur, Pulp, Suede, all good...) it's not really a genre that was ever particularly innovative, artistic or well, worth copying.

So, while there's nothing implicitly BAD about this record, it's all stuff that's been done better by others, both back in the day and currently.

With any new crop of bands that are lumped into a "scene" and have similar interests, there's always a few really fantastic acts, a few decent bands that will release a memorable single or two before fading into obscurity, and a few really boring copyists. Unfortunately for We Are Scientists, I fear they will probably find themselves in category number 2 if they don't come up with something more original next time round.