Since the early promise of their 1997 debut, Number One album 'Attack Of The Grey Lantern' Chester's Mansun have yet to scale the giddy heights of success predicted for them by an excited music press, eager to hail them as the new Radiohead. Their third album, while competent enough, won't change things much.
'Little Kix' pretty much picks up where 1998's 'Six' left off. The band's self-described "epic, soulful, mournful rock" still leans towards the stadium pomp music of the Eighties - huge, dramatic, goth chords, great grandiose swells of strings, Paul Draper's camp, operatic vocals. Strangely, the like of Tears For Fears, Marillion, Love & Money and A-Ha spring to mind when listening to 'Little Kix'. Perhaps with a dash of David Bowie.
And while that's not particularly bad company to keep, it's the sheer neverchanging mood of the album which wears the listener down after a while, with its all-consuming, dark, draining melancholy. Current self-deprecating single 'I Can Only Disappoint You' is engaging enough, as is the driving 'Fool', the Bowie-esque 'Electric Man' and the spiralling strings of 'Soundtrack 4 2 Lovers', not a million miles away from ABC or My Life Story.
But ultimately there's not enough here to keep you gripped for very long. As earnest and able as they no doubt are, if Mansun could only lighten up every once in a while, it might make their shady side a tad more enticing.
