With Love and Squalor
Label: Virgin
Rated: NONE
WorkNameSort: With Love and Squalor
Albums like With Love and Squalor are prone to bite you in the ass. The tight-pants swagger and pop-hook bombast of a song like “Nobody Move, Nobody Get Hurt” will make you mutter things like “This is the best single I’ve ever heard in my life” and “Oh my god, this band so completely rules my world.” And indeed, both of those things are true for most of Squalor‘s 12 tracks … at least for the 41 minutes it takes you to listen to the album. It’s in the repeat plays and the passage of time that mercilessly of-the-moment bands like We Are Scientists are made or broken. It happened with The Killers, Kaiser Chiefs and about five dozen other bands over the last two years: sexy riffs, wiry jangles, propulsive percussion and post-cool lyricism get your attention and make you want to play air guitar and sing along while making a fabulous mix CD for your girlfriend, but eventually, the music proves to be as hollow and soulless as a Clay Aiken remix. It’s still too early to tell with this album, but right now it doesn’t matter since the thrill is still fresh. It’s not completely embarrassing to crank the disc full-blast with the windows open … yet.
This article appears in Jan 4-10, 2006.