Spitalfield – Stop Doing Bad Things

Stop Doing Bad Things. A novel idea isn’t it? Wouldn’t the world be a much better place if people just simply stopped doing bad things? But then, that statement isn’t quite as clear as it seems. It seems to be direct and simple, but really there is more gray area in that question then meets the eye. Here comes the debate as to what “bad things” constitutes. Does it mean lying? Stealing? Killing? Swearing? Or maybe its just playing bad music? Then again, if it is the last of those choices, then maybe Spitalfield should take their own advice and Stop Doing Bad Things.

Now that’s not necessarily saying that their sophomore album is incredibly bad or an abomination of music, its just not that good either. Although I’m not that familiar with their debut, I did like their single (I Love The Way She Said LA) and they were amazing live, so what happened here? Why did they suddenly go downhill? Maybe its that sophomore slump everyone talks about. The curse that says every band that breaks it good on their debut makes a crappy follow-up, if that’s true, then Spitalfield is the perfect example of that curse.

They seem to take the indie-rock/emo wave and try too hard to cash in on their clichés. All of them flood together to make something that is just too mellow to be exciting. The pop-rock is too generic that at times you get bored, and no one wants to be bored do they?

Its still not a complete destruction of a CD though as it does have a few semi-decent songs like Tampa Bum Blues and Simple Minds, Simple Lives, but even those aren’t strong enough to live out by themselves. Hopefully Stop Doing Bad Things is just a part of the sophomore slump curse, and that Spitalfield will be able to pick it up with their next album and re-create the excitement that they did live.