The Enemy - Music for the People

(Warner Bros)
The Enemy so desperately wish they were Oasis. And while We’ll Live & Die in These Towns had a certain Jam-esque swagger and dole-queue poetry Music for the People is a worrying retread. There’s no doubt it will be sung loud and proud from the terraces as the band support their idols at Murrayfield this summer but their fire has been quenched. What’s lacking is their debut’s urgency and passionate despair. It shines though in places (‘Elephant Song’ and ‘Nation of Checkout Girls’) but otherwise it’s plodding working-man’s rock by numbers. And ‘51st State’ is just a Clash rip-off too far.