Review Summary: Whilst there is a very real talent on show here, over emphasis on the singles, over long play time and poor play order really hinder the enjoyment of this effort.
This is UK power pop phenomenon Busted's second and final studio album, and whilst rarely overcoming much of their initial criticism, they managed to record an album that did improve on efforts such as "What I Go To School For" and "Year 3000", and they should be commended for that.
The album is still fairly biased quality-wise towards the singles, with tracks such as "Air Hostess" and "Who's David" being the best songs on the album, the fun, energetic and lyrically lightweight slices of pop rock acting like aural bubblegum - it's not, despite what some people may claim, outright bad, merely shallow, but definitely fun.
The main real criticism that can be made is the sometimes melodramatic lyrical delivery, such as that of Charlie Simpson album track "Over Now" - perhaps they should be commended for at least trying to appear somewhat deep and emotional, but this is their weakness and it clearly shows. In any case, that track is to all extents a second-rate "3AM", another massive single of the album, a slow, ponderous anthem that will get you singing along whether you like it or not.
The production on this album is, as you would expect, very "glossy", and although this works in the isolation of the singles, after a whole album it feels very monotonous and dreary, which is a shame because the band, in particular James Bourne seem to have a talent of writing very strong pop songs (as he has shown by going on to write hits for the likes of The Saturdays and "Busted 2" McFly) but at 15 tracks long the lack of variety in this regard shows up badly. This is the main problem with the album - whilst the singles are undeniably catchy and extremely fun, the album tracks tend to get lost in the shuffle - and the track order doesn't help, with all four singles appearing within the first five tracks. Whilst there is a very real talent on show here, over emphasis on the singles, over long play time and poor play order really hinder the enjoyment of this effort.
