SPIN

5

• SPIN Rating:5 of 10

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A guitar line as crisp and clean as a Saturday-night disco outfit, coupled with a percolating bass drum that could soundtrack the activities of said night, fills opener "The Fun Powder Plot" with tingly possibilities. But when Hayden Thorpe chortles for a "booty call" in a strangulated falsetto, it's an immediate buzzkill. Throughout this U.K. quartet's second effort, Thorpe's abuse of Morrissey's (and Antony's) vocal tics derails the insistent rhythms and sterling, Johnny Marr–style guitar. Only on the title track does Thorpe settle into something more appealingly even-keeled.

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