Mud: Yearbook

It is a sad day when you have to consider the possibility that you are old and no longer understand young people’s music. To this reviewer Mud’s Yearbook contains 13 songs that, with one exception, all sound identical. The album appears like it was created by the corpses of Real Big Fish with the ska influences ripped forcibly from their cold dead hands fronted by Avril Lavigne. It is Californian punk by checklist; repetitive riff… check, amusing self deprecating lyrics… check, brass section… check. I could go on.

One song stands out because it dares to be different. “Psycho” could easily be from a film soundtrack (I’ll leave the cynics among you to say that it is deliberately targeting such a market). With a lush orchestra arrangement it comes over like a Bond theme, only with less subtlety. It really is quite bombastic and audacious, even if it doesn’t really appear to have a chorus. However, after the chorus overload of the rest of the album it comes as a welcome reprieve. This song is worth the price of a single-track download but the rest of the album doesn’t really do anything remarkable. Or maybe I just don’t get “young people’s music” anymore.