Frankie & the Heartstrings: Decency | Album Review

There will always be a market for guitar bands on the UK's music scene. Audiences of a certain disposition love hearing musicians' take on modern Britain filtered through a haze of strummed guitars, but it's difficult to see what has kept Frankie & the Heartstrings together for so long. Despite new blood including Futureheads frontman Ross Millard, the Sunderland five-piece's third album sounds a decade out of date. The Dexys Midnight Runners comparisons start and end with the occasional infusions of brass, while even the better tracks here like the jerky Maximo Park-esque twitch of Decency sound formulaic delivered in Frankie Francis's unremarkable warble. Most of all, this album feels unfinished, yearning for some zing to make any of its tunes even half decent. frankieandtheheartstrings.com