Five O'Clock Heroes - 'Speak Your Language' (Pinnacle) Released 07/07/08

Bonnie Tyler needed one, Def Leppard volunteered and Enrique Iglesias, well that’s a different story. The point is that everyone needs a hero at some time in their lives and flexing their musical muscle in the hope of building on the nearly but not quite critique that followed their 2006 debut are the Five O’clock Heroes; a band who have garnered enough of a following through their live performance to justify the rumble of expectation that surrounds their second album.

‘Speak Your Language’ starts well enough with the opening track ‘Judas’. It’s a basic yet well established sound featuring structured guitar, frantic drumming and an energetic promise that although restrained, threatens to explode. The radio friendly smile of ‘New York Chinese Laundry’ follows with an amiable vocal and jaunty bass, good enough to chase away the clouds during an early morning festival slot as does the above average pub-pop amble of ‘Who’ featuring Kate Moss’ muso groupie nemesis Agyness Deyn. But even Britain’s ambassador of youth culture can’t save this one; it’s a hat-trick of tracks that fail to deliver, a theme that consistently plagues the album. ‘Speak Your Language’, ‘Alice’, ‘Trust’ and ‘Everybody Knows It’ are on the cusp but lack what all good stories need; a beginning, middle and end.

The ideas, catchy hooks and pop tinged pockets of break-out familiarity are all there, but unlike Batman who had an arsenal of kapows, whacks, biffs, boffs and zowies hidden under his cape, the Five O’clock Heroes don’t and what should be killer tracks only amount to allegations of ABH. While the weak willed skank of ‘Don’t Say Don’t’, soulless ‘Radio Lover’ and ‘Happy Together’ play to corporate fools in baseball caps, there are some exceptions; the tear stained sincerity of ‘These Girls’ and all but anthemic qualities of ‘God And Country’ keep the band contained within the limits of their musical ability, but ultimately lack ambition and drive.

While some bands struggle to find enough tracks to fill an album and others painstakingly shortlist those good enough for inclusion, the Five O’clock Heroes have shoehorned 13 into a hollow melting pot of recognisable sounds including ‘Grab Me’, the shamelessly indulgent jam ending pap that closes theirs. ‘Speak Your Language’ is unfortunately neither heroic nor speaks my language; thankfully there’s still Batman.