If you were taken in by Grouplove’s easy-going, sun-kissed debut, ‘Never Trust A Happy Song’, chances are you’ve already wrestled with its follow-up, ‘Spreading Rumours’, which received a UK release this week after making its bow across the pond last autumn.
Led by the sugar-rush of Itchin’ On A Photograph, still the band’s best song by some distance, ‘...Happy Song’ just about managed to escape the Apple advert confines set aside for Tongue Tied, its summer appeal pretty much undeniable. ‘Spreading Rumours’ goes deeper than that, but with mixed success.
Littered across its bloated, 50 minute running time are pop gems left to meander, with I’m With You, the opening song, a prime example. Its rambling outro ensures that Borderlines and Aliens, complete with a snake-like guitar line and massive hook, kicks in just as listener interest hits a low.
Shark Attack suffers a similar fate, its playful acoustic opening sacrificed at the altar of squelchy synths and indistinct melodies, while Raspberry, as engaging as its Pixies homage is, can’t escape the fact that it’s essentially a retread of Black Francis’ poppiest moves.
Fortunately, Sit Still crams three or four songs’ worth of melody into four minutes and Ways To Go is a worthy single, crammed as it is with goofy charm. What I Know, Didn’t Have To Go and News To Me, something approximating a Grouplove power ballad, are also diamonds in the rough.
What ‘Spreading Rumours’ can’t outrun, though, is its own ambition. There’s so much going on here, so many competing themes, that a cohesive whole was always a long shot.
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