The girls are solid musicians, and they’ve structured their little songs well enough. The record is pretty short too, clocking in at 24 minutes, which is good, because I was bored already at the 15 minute mark.

Polished to the point of being nausea-inducing, this album has been packaged to a precise remit: robotic, stadium-rock-lite that follows the tried and tested formula of acoustic quiet bit, drums come in, second verse, chorus, repeat to fade so strictly that you’ll feel like banging your head against a brick wall and/or adding your own beat-box percussion.

They are capable of making albums that are big, over the top and fun. The Resistance is over the top, but comes off as boisterous and overblown.

Bricolage is as a sometimes fun but mostly ambitionless and unnecessary project.

Colonia has an awful lot of ideas, but doesn’t really know what to do with them and the majority of tracks end up sounding messy and--like the rest of us following Christmas--carrying a little too much extra weight.

Now, there’s nothing wrong with something throwaway now and again, but it’s difficult to stomach over the course of eleven tracks.

The record sounds phoned in, plain and simple, and its awkward concessions to cliche, its trash heap lyrical conceits, and its dopey production have a cumulative effect that would be insulting if it weren’t so transparently uninspired and uninteresting.

The album aims for Grohl-esque rock anthems, but falls short mostly due to a lack of melodic gifts; given that, it needs many more musical ideas than it has to keep anybody interested.

A 55-minute mess called Curtis, undoubtedly one of this year’s worst releases.

Unoriginal, haphazardly thrown together and lacking most of what could make it the least bit enjoyable, Places Like This just proves that Architecture in Helsinki is a one trick pony.

This record is half as clever as it thinks it is, and utterly inessential.

For what it is, it may in fact be quite good. But, to her discarded fans, at least, she's given the ultimate finger.

Liam Lynch is about as funny as the plague, and even that had its moments in Monty Python. This doesn't have any.