The Ordinary Boys - The Ordinary Boys

After nearly 10 years since their last album, The Ordinary Boys are back - and they’re taking things back to basics. With the original ‘Over the Counter Culture’ trio plus Spectrals’ Louis Jones on guitar (he and Preston met stage-diving at a Cribs show and decided to work together, as you do) their fourth, self-titled album ditches the progression of their last two LPs and steps back to the happy-go-lucky punk influences of their inception.

With Preston naming this album an homage to the kind of punk and hardcore music that inspired him and Jones to pick up guitars in the first place, it’s surprising how little heart exists amongst a collection of tracks that feel like they’re going through the motions.

Opener ‘About Tonight’, combined with ‘Awkward’, both feel fleetingly classic and deliberate, the simple guitar licks and catchy vocals for a brief instant capturing what The Ordinary Boys hoped to bring with them in their return to the limelight. It’s not long before the energy quickly ebbs away, falling flat for the remainder. This fourth outing feels overly confident in recapturing the sound The Ordinary Boys built themselves on. Guitar parts quickly become dull and repetitive while the vocals fall into simple, unimaginative rhyming structures both predictable and impersonal.