Ludes – ‘The Dark Art of Happiness’ (Double Dragon) Released 10/04/06

For a band as important as they were in their moment, The Libertines have predictably spawned a slue of similar bands ploughing their furrow with diminishing returns. The crueler amongst us might cite Babyshambles and Dirty Pretty Things as examples. For much of this album Ludes are caught red handed demonstrating just such limited copy cat style, aping the Libs energetic style and quirky lyrics but without any of the magic and melody.

Recent single ‘Never Had A Chance’ is actually most reminiscent of ‘Bang Bang Your Dead,’ complete with Barat-esque nasally vocals from singer David Ashby. ‘Bang Bang…’ was far from a classic tune, however and ‘Never Had A Chance is another rung down. A sly nod to the Police can't save it, or perhaps that should be make it any worse. There are also several Pete n Carl thruway moments, ‘Sailor Boy’; and ‘Luckiest Theatre’ being particularly uninspired. Staying with the bad stuff and the nadir of the album is ‘Mr Benson’, wherein Ashby attempts to mine the seam of illicit affairs in twitchy curtain suburbia explored by the likes of Albarn and Jarvis Cocker. He casts himself in the Jarvis role of a guy having an affair with a married woman stuck in a “normal” world. Lyrically its all to obvious, however, with a mention of “semi detached house” and the attempt at a Blur-style, simple old school musical hall tune only serves to be achingly dull and repetitive.

But hooray! There are some bright moments. The best thing here is ‘Traffic Lights’ which has melody and some much more pleasing guitar work. And to their credit ‘Mr Benson’ is not only the deviation from the Libs-indie that Ludes offer up. They go for a more all out rock sound on opener ‘Badlands’ and on ‘Dog Don’t Bark’. The former is still pretty drab, the later OK though bordering on ridiculous – particularly the lyrics - “Your dogs don’t bark cos your dog don’t exist? “ Ludes save the best for last however. Penultimate track ‘Green Eyes’ is a surprising successful attempt a slower acoustic ballad and closer ‘Dead Man’s Music’ does the same for Rancid style ska- punk. It’s all a bit too little too late, however.