Mountaineers - Spoke Into The Future (Northern Ambition)

Weirdness can be good. Weirdness can be great. Here weirdness is just staggeringly, overwhelmingly bland, which is quite an achievement, because, in the course of four songs, the Mountaineers manage to remind you of a bunch of other bands without once making you grateful for the fact that you're listening to them rather than the band being mimicked.

The jangly Spoke Into The Future is two parts Razorlight-lite harmonies to one part electronic squelches; Everything is a half-hearted attempt at wacky psychadelia that goes to bed every night dreaming it was by the Flaming Lips and wakes every morning the heartbreaking realisation that it isn't. The acoustic I Would Go Anywhere With You is simple, bittersweet, and dull, dull, dull.

I don't hate it. I don't like it. I just don't care about it. Spoke Into The Future is the acceptable face of experimentation, a middle-of-the-road release for people who think that they're cutting edge but who really just want something pleasant to lull them into a catatonic state whilst hosting their dinner parties.