The Bohicas – The Making Of

★☆

The making of what?  The album?  The title references the making of itself?  What in the name of all that is holy does that even mean?

It doesn’t matter.  Let’s talk about what does matter:  the utter mediocrity on display on this English indie band’s debut album.

The album starts off promisingly enough.  “I Do It For Your Love” kicks out a riff that recalls early Cars in all their stiff glory.  Then Dominic McGuiness starts singing and it all falls down.  He is easily the most uninspired frontman I’ve heard in weeks.  The music on display is at least muscular, if rather generic.  It’s equal parts Strokes and Strokes wannabes – that is to say, it’s largely indistinguishable from everything else on alternative radio.  Is it the Kaiser Chiefs?  Two Door Cinema Club?  The Vaccines?  No, it’s the Bohicas!  If McGuiness had anything approaching a personality he might have been able to sell these songs, given that there’s nothing terrible about them.  Unfortunately, McGuiness has the personality of the singer of the local bar band, making The Making Of into a muddle of half-realized anthems, stock riffs, and generic alterna-vocals with lyrics that could be easily interchanged between songs without making anything confusing.

I guess it fits well on the radio to break up Mumford & Sons and Coldplay, but I’ll be damned if I know why anyone would seek out and listen to the album more than once.