There’s no mistaking the Big Pink’s knack for songcraft: their new album, Future This, is chock full of well-crafted hooks and thoughtful chord progressions. It’s patient and carefully sculpted, and the enthusiasm of its creators shines clearly on tracks like the gloriously anthemic “Rubbernecking” and the lighter-waving lead single “Hit The Ground (Superman).” There’s some variety, of course – the restlessness of “Jump Music” and the album’s title track are a nice counterpoint – but mostly Future This stays in its singer-songwriter comfort zone. Which, to be honest, is kind of disappointing.

Listening through Future This, one gets the sense that some interesting territory was sacrificed for a thoroughly pop-rock ethos; the album is so decidedly conventional that it’s hard to understand the “noise-pop” label often applied to The Big Pink. Future This feels like 45 blurry minutes of verse-chorus-verse-chorus-bridge, and by the time the last track (the bland and melancholy “77”) peters out, the songs feel indistinguishable and repetitive. And actually, even more than disappointment, it’s frustrating to hear musicians with respectable musical credentials (Robbie Furze played guitar for friggin’ Alec Empire, for God’s sake!) with so many tools at their disposal turn out something so… normal. It’s about as exciting as you might imagine a Bono solo album would be.

It’s convincing and genuine, and on the whole pleasurable, but hardly a memorable listen – at its heart, FT is a well-produced rock album with some neat electronic tricks, best enjoyed once or twice and then disposed of.

2 / 5 bars

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The Big Pink – Stay Gold

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The Big Pink – Rubbernecking

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The Big Pink – Jump Music