Damn! This record's broken, and certainly not in the Roy Castle

sense. It just keeps repeating itself. Distorted drop-D

chugga-chugga riff, dude yelling about alcohol in a sub _'Design for

Life_ manner, dude shouting about his mother...

Damn! My mistake! How stupid do I look? It's actually just a really

one dimensional record by unambitious post-grunge three piece Reuben.

Gone are their early days, those halcyon times of constant tippings as

"next medium-sized thing", days of dumb, catchy, heartfelt crunch-pop

wundertunes like 'Scared of the Police' and 'Let's Stop Hanging Out'

and in its place is this. It's certainly dumb and crunchy,

occasionally catchy and arguably heartfelt, but, and this is a big

but, it's just not nearly as good. Of the 13 tracks here (at 50 minutes, it's hardly "Very Fast" and the

only "Danger" is of frustrated boredom), ten are near indistinguishable

Helmet rip-offs (the band admit as much in the lyrics to _'Return of

the Jedi'_), two are low rent Foo Fighting ballads and one is the

narrow-mindedly-titled _'Every time a Teenager Listens to Drum & Bass a

Rockstar Dies'_, a failed attempt at broadening the album's horizons

with a drum machine.

Of the up-tempo numbers, current single 'Keep it to Yourself' is

sweet like (Mud)honey and shows that they aren't all that bad, as do a

few other nifty riffs and the string coda to _'Nobody Loves You Like I

Do'_. In fact, they're still fun live - wheeling out the oldies for a

little nostalgic pogo - but their entertainment value is mainly thanks to

frontman Jamie Lenman's immense affability, a charm almost entirely

lacking from this record.

When 'Return of the Jedi' complains about

having to quit the band and get a real job, given this album's

workmanlike nature, you'd be hard-pressed to see a difference.