With its ominous title you could almost be forgiven for thinking that the Kaiser Chiefs’ second long-player would be a foray into more intriguing realms, considering the paranoid world climate and all that, thus packing more muscle than their relatively blithe debut ‘Employment.’ Look, they’ve even followed Razorlight’s lead in having a drab black and white band shot for a the album cover, seemingly to be taken ‘more seriously’ as artists. But sadly, bar the odd moment, ‘Yours Truly, Angry Mob’ is very much business as usual for the Leeds lads. Repetition, check. School boy rhyming schemes, check. Plenty of fucking “la la la’s”, check. Crucially however, whereas two years ago these were all traits that warmed some people to the Kaisers, now it’s just outright annoying.

Lead track ‘Ruby’ encapsulates the grating qualities of the album perfectly. Radio-friendly to the point of nausea, Mr Wilson spouts his monotonous repetitive “Ruby, Ruby, Ruby, Ruby, do you, do you, do you, do you…” lines with plenty of enthusiasm amidst what is, musically at least, a catchy tune. Fundamentally though, this is dumbed-down, one dimensional music that, yes, inexorably gets stuck in your head (for days on end), but for anyone out of their teens it neither challenges nor excites. In fact, so blatant are the Kaisers’ gimmicks in drawing you in, it’s almost insulting as a listener.

Unfortunately there are worse examples in point to be found here. The semi-serious ‘I Can Do It Without You’ not only contains the obligatory repetition and awful word play, but it’s a turgid tune too. Later, ‘Try My Best’ sees them slow the often hurried pace down and old Ricky goes all serious on us. Okay, some commendation can be given for them trying to do something different, but this is possibly the worst Kaiser Chiefs song committed to plastic - we even get a cringe-inducing stadium rock-esque guitar solo thrown in for good measure.

Putting things into perspective slightly, ‘Yours Truly’ does have its better moments. Ironically, ‘Everything Is Average Nowadays’ - a song that every despondent journalist is surely gagging to pun to death - is actually one of the highlights. Extremely dubious lyrical content aside, what we have is a carefree, breezy offering enough to draw a smile to even a staunch cynic’s chops. Well, until you realise it’s almost a direct copy of ‘Everyday I Love You Less and Less’, that is. ‘The Angry Mob’ and ‘Heat Dies Down’ too are packed with plenty of vitriol as they hurtle along at breakneck pace, and ‘Love’s Not A Competition (But I’m Winning)’ proves that when they put their minds to it, the Kaisers can write a genuinely affecting tune.

But such high points though are immediately obliterated when you hear such lines as ‘Highroyds’’ “I remember nights out when we were young, they weren’t very good they were rubbish.” For a band almost touching thirty, lyrically it becomes transparent how out of touch they are at dealing with subjects such as juvenile nostalgia - leave it to tykes such as the Arctic Monkeys or your old foes The View instead chaps. Worse, packed with now trademark shite lyrics (“There are many things that I would be proud of, if I’d only invented them such as the wheel”), album bookend ‘Retirement’ duly ensures the album goes out with a whimper.

2007 has already seen the release of a flurry of outstanding albums from the likes of Patrick Wolf, Jamie T, The Shins and the impending Arcade Fire opus. Compared to such works, it makes you realise how far off the pace the Kaiser Chiefs really are with this album. ‘Yours Truly, Angry Mob’ is the sound of a band hitting a creative brick wall. Back to the drawing board then and put this episode behind you.