Once I saw the bit in the video where a girl punches singer bloke in the eye, I didn’t bother watching further.
[Video][Website]
[5.50]
Jonathan Bogart: I’m given pause by how much I loathed them last time around; is this really that much better, or have I gone soft in my decrepitude?
[6]
Brad Shoup: Matt and Kim attempt “O Superman”. Sure, it sounds like the bestest idea ever, at least until Chris Martin ghosts the bridge. Ed Nash’s bass alternates between supple supplemental and straight playing the changes; meanwhile, the band scavenges the studio, converting everything into rhythmic elements. Not all the timbres work, and those that don’t sure as hell don’t merit a spotlight.
[6]
Mallory O’Donnell: How they can manage to keep the tedium level up with all these willful tempo changes is beyond me, but it’s very post-indie Supertramp of them.
[3]
Katherine St Asaph: It’s not Bombay Bicycle Club’s doing that I keep singing “every day I’m shuffling” over the instrumental parts, or that it works so well. It probably is their doing, though, that I can listen to “Shuffle” and actually think of fun.
[6]
Edward Okulicz: Indie bands who employ a dinky little piano in order to invest their tedious noodling with even a tiny amount of kinetics annoy me to no end, but “Shuffle” neatly avoids this pitfall by actually picking up a decent little tempo for the chorus. Said dinky piano is used as a catch, not as a crutch, and the end result is as good a vehicle for hand-claps and polite, awkward dancing as anything else.
[7]
Anthony Easton: This is pleasant and competent, and an excellent example of its genre.
[5]