The Enemy

We'll Live and Die in These Towns, WARNER BROTHERS

... and we'll deserve to, if we keep churning out this kind of tired, meat-and-potatoes indie-pop. The Enemy are yet another of those retro-Jam-style surly-prole bands like The Ordinary Boys, trotting out their clichéd accounts of grim suburban life and determined to offer such insightful advice as "It's not OK to be a slave". Apart from "This Song", which features surely the limpest brass arrangement ever appended to a pop song, The Enemy stick firmly to the basic guitar/ bass/drums formula, to which they have added a veneer of grunge's blame-everybody-else attitude. There's no acceptance of existential responsibility here, it's all "You let me down", "Don't let it drag you down", etc – as if there's an outside agency charged with the task of giving permission for things, and subject to criticism for what they've "allowed" to happen. Their problem is exemplified in "You're Not Alone", a feel-good assertion of fellowship that overlooks the more important factor of free-thinking individuality. Lumbering along drably, its off-the-peg rebel-pop is the sound of teens who're not alone enough.

Download this: 'You're Not Alone', 'Away From Here'