Puddle of Mudd have a mass of work to do if they’re to follow in the footsteps of fellow Durst endorsed rockers, Staind. If musical quality is anything to go by they should achieve this feat with aplomb, but let’s face it, that’s no big achievement is it? ‘Come Clean’ is in no way the most earth-movingly original record you’ll hear this year and it’s occasionally laughably under the influence (‘She Hates Me’ sounding more like Nirvana than anything Bush have ever commited to disc) but who dares to be different in the current musical conglomerate anyway?

Sounding like the bastard offspring of every band from the early 90’s grunge explosion, the Muddster’s set their stall out early and from start to finish it’s pretty much the same thing throughout, easily digestible angst rock. There’s nothing challenging here, just four guys knocking out MOR, FM friendly track, one after another. It's the musical equivalent of putting a fiver on United to win the title, it’s likely to be successful but there’s no element of risk involved in the slightest

Puddle of Mudd aren’t doing anything wrong on their debut release, it’s just they’re not doing anything right either. ‘Blurry’ is a nice enough soft moment with more than a shade of ‘It’s been a while’, ‘Control’ does the rudimentary quiet to loud dynamic explosion, and vocalist Wes Scantlin does a fine Cobain impersonation but it’s all just a little too….polite. You await something raucous and truly ferocious to bound from the speakers, but you’ve got more chance of getting Ghandi riled.

With predictability being followed by huge album sales as sure as night follows day, ‘Come Clean’ should sell by the truck-load. Being both solid for what it is (heavily marketed flavour of the week gubbins) and redundant in the field of creativity, Puddle of Mudd are grunge’s piece of Madeira cake with a smidgen of icing. Plain, but tasty if you like that kind of thing. Did you ever expect anything else?