- Critic score
- Publication
- By date
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MojoAn album full of jukebox hits. [Mar 2007, p.98]
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UncutTheir second album manages to be full of surprises, while never straying too far from what you'd expect. [Mar 2007, p.80]
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It starts out inchoate and hard to put your finger on, then coalesces into something wiry and unshakable.
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Call this album their application for recognition as one of the decade's major UK bands.
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Q MagazineThis is serious fun. [Mar 2007, p.106]
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Angry Mob delivers 13 consistently catchy tracks that bounce unrelentingly. [Apr 2007, p.115]
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UrbOn Yours Truly, Angry Mob, Kaiser Chiefs grow up, dig in and get utterly serious, albeit in a pogo-hopping, decadent British way. [Apr 2007, p.105]
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Although the tunes have plenty of vigour and aggression, as with Employment, Britpop veterans will feel more than a little sense of deja vu.
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'Yours Truly...' is a rip-roaring pop record - sprightly, lean and adventurous - a bold leap skyward from 'Employment'.
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BillboardLike last time, the singles are better than the whole. [31 Mar 2007]
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SpinWith such sharp detail, Kaiser Chiefs have elevated themselves from a singles band to a group that's capable of both having a laugh and making a focused statement about life's less gleeful side. [Apr 2007, p.92]
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Under The RadarWhere Employment featured lazy, loping grooves perfect for sing-alongs in clubs, YTAM showcases muscular power-chord guitar rockers that will make for great drunken shout-alongs in arenas. [#17, p.92]
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Entertainment WeeklyThe familiarity is comforting, but nothing here will make you jump up on the bar and headbutt a stranger. [30 Mar 2007, p.71]
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As Blur, Morrissey, and even Oasis learned the hard way, engaging in parochial social criticism — as much of Yours Truly does with its references to youth clubs and housing estates — doesn’t connect with more than a cult of Anglophiles here in the US.
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Like its predecessor, the Kaisers' second album is patchy, but does have moments of brilliance.
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Ultimately Yours Truly, Angry Mob is, if nothing else, predictable.
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As on Employment, some songs spark with energy and others die in the first verse. Is a complete album asking too much?
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Yours Truly, Angry Mob is one of the catchier guitar records you'll hear all year... But the Kaiser Chiefs can also be a little shallow.
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The central flaw of Mob-- and it's a profound one-- is that its attempt to refine Employment's boundless levels of boyish vigor with introspection and intellect comes across as tired and bored.
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Kaiser Chiefs scramble to reclaim ground already won, sticking with lazily hooky songs sporting overcranked arrangements. The result? Charmless fare like the bombastic UK hit single "Ruby," and loutish lad-rock like "Thank You Very Much" and "My Kind Of Guy," which sound simultaneously pushy and forgettable.
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A sophomore effort that rarely rises above middling.
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They're the English equivalent of Fountains of Wayne.
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Paste MagazineWilson's fake tales of Middle England lack the sharp observational focus of the Arctic Monkeys, the bratty cleverness of Blur circa Parklife or even the sexy swagger of Franz Ferdinand. [May 2007, p.61]
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The melodies feel functional at best, surprisingly charmless affairs that push all the right buttons with little passion or joy, while the lyrics are that depressing rock cliche: woe-is-me deliberations on the pressures of fame.
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Caught between essentially meaningless singalongs and trying to actually mean something, what you get is average power-pop with crass attempts at poetry.
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Yours Truly, Angry Mob is such a sloppily put-together album that it almost seems intentionally bad.
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The sad thing is that while nobody expects Kaiser Chiefs to be re-inventing the wheel, we do expect a pretty rock-solid, perfect pop record. Yours Truly, Angry Mob most definitely isn't rock solid or perfect in any sense.
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Kaiser Chiefs have absolutely no talent or taste for innovation.
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There’s simply no charm or subtlety on show here, and not even any cheeky, bona fide pop thrills in the vein of “Everyday I Love You Less & Less.”
User score distribution:
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Positive: 58 out of 90
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Mixed: 8 out of 90
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Negative: 24 out of 90
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Oct 14, 2014
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May 14, 2012
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GarrettJ.Jul 20, 2008With the title track and Ruby the only redeeming features, this album disappointed me.