The Wombats go from indie landfill to hyperventilating synth overkill on this tiresome and tawdry third album. Read TEN's review
This third outing from the Liverpudlian japesters who scored hits with Let's Dance to Joy Division in 2007 and Tokyo (Vampires & Wolves) in 2010, is somewhat of a concept album.
In the four years since the band flirted with the fickle mainstream, lead singer Matthew Murphy moved to LA where he was both alienated and seduced by the city’s hidden shallows and overwhelming falseness.
He penned a bunch of songs about a fictional ideal/nightmare girl of his dreams only to meet a seemingly unattainable local woman soon after. On his return to his adoptive hometown of London, Murphy then entered into the dreaded long-distance relationship, the undoing of many a pop poet.
This is the basis of Glitterbug’s cocky synth pop bravado riddled with self-doubt but there is very little to love here. The Wombats have gone from Indie landfill to a big, bright and expansive American sound of shimmering synths and bludgeoning drums on nearly every song.
The band's last album, The Modern Glitch, had a certain majesty (Jump into The Fog was particularly fine) but tellingly, Glitterbug was produced by Mark Crew, the man who worked with the truly egregious Bastille, and Murphy has adopted the same glottal stops and elongated vowel sounds as Bastille vocalist, Dan Smith.
His knack for a neat couplet seems to have faded too. Murphy may think he’s being nudge, nudge naughty but too often he sounds like the annoying bloke at a party who won’t leave you alone.
In his unlovely helium yelp, he offers such clunkers as, “I just need you in that fur coat with my necklace underneath.” and “I saw her slam back tequilas like Ollie Reed at an Irish stag do.”
Just when you think the superior-sounding Curveballs may redeem Glitterball’s mix of the tawdry and the tiresome, Murphy gurgles, “There is no greater sight than you in your underwear removing mine.”
Come in Wombats - your time is up.
Alan Corr
