An essential rule of music journalism: never reveal your thoughts on an album in your opening paragraph. It leaves you without a hook, no pay-off, your audience will just get bored of all the words and words and words when they already know what you think, skip to the score, and wander off back to Pitchfork to see what real journalists think. All rules are there to be broken, though, and I’m gonna shatter this one for Sky Larkin’s sake, because Christ knows they need something out of the ordinary about them. There it was, just three sentences in. I’ve been listening to this album a surprising amount in the week or so I’ve had it, considering how much it bores me. What’s more surprising is that I still can’t recall a single hook or interesting melody. I might be sorely mistaken, but I’m pretty sure this is meant to be a catchy pop-rock record, the kind of music you go out and buy if you hear it in a club and get it stuck in your head and simply couldn’t go on another day without hearing that riff again. But it’s all so bland. Layers of grey on grey, treacle-thick bass and some stupid three-note synthline with a woman who isn’t Karen-O straining her vocal cords to be heard over the tuneless racket behind her.And another thing: John Goodmanson got this one all wrong. He’s usually the kind of producer you can’t take much objection to ”“ Los Campesino’s latest, think of the music what you will, really had that sound nailed. Which isn’t surprising considering he’s worked with Pavement and Death Cab in the past ”“ but this is just wrong. I’m not a great expert on such things, but the whole thing is a muggy, chugging mess, the cymbals on 'Matador' and at various other points on the album sound like they were recorded on a dictaphone and tacked on at the end.I really hate to sound this negative. This isn’t meant to be a scathing, spiteful, completely derisive review. Sky Larkin are NOT absolutely awful, and this isn’t Tom Whyman’s White Lies review mark II. They’re certainly competent instrumentalists and competent songwriters, but competence isn’t enough to hang an album on. Closing track 'Keepsakes' is the first moment in half an hour that brought me out of a stupor. And that was only because “I’m gonna cut you in keep-size pieces ... and keep the bigger bits in the boot of the car” is an amusing lyric.Hailing from my almost-home town of Leeds, I’d really love to be able to sing their praises and pronounce Leeds the new creative centre of the musical world. But I can’t lie, and there’s just absolutely no inspiration here, no spark or flair or individuality to mark them out from a hundred bands from a hundred other cities. There's no hint of a band who could go on to bigger and better things. Many of the tracks here sound like they were forced to write them to get the album out on time - which might well be the case. There’s nothing original or interesting or engaging going on, and even if this is the kind of music you just can’t get enough of, why not try dusting down those old Yeah Yeah Yeahs LPs? Hell, the artwork for Fever To Tell is more exciting than The Golden Spike. 30%Sky Larkin on Mypsace