Tings Fall Apart

There's not much crossover between the worlds of indie and mainstream pop, unless you count the novelty covers on Jo Whiley's radio show –Snow Patrol's version of Crazy In Love, say, or the Sugababes doing I Bet You Look Good On The Dancefloor.

These are waves of recognition, a respectful "how you doing?" from one side to the other, but the Ting Tings are one of the few bands to setup camp in the middle. In the words of Katie White, they're offering an alternative to "bubblegum manufactured autotuned ten-writers-involved pop" by producing "sincere, homemade",self-penned songs with their eyes firmly on the charts.

So what does this hybrid actually sound like? Promisingly for pop fans, Great DJ starts with a guitar riff that sounds like it's been pinched from Abba's Mamma Mia. But for a song about the excitement of being in a club – with "the girls… the boys… the strings… the
drums…" – it's not very, well, exciting.

It's followed by"That's Not My Name, the album's catchiest moment, which could easily have been in and out in three and a half minutes. Instead the song lingers past the 5:00 mark like a bank robber hanging around in the vault instead of making a swift exit.

This is the impression that runs through the album – songs that go onlonger than they have to, leaving the mind to wander – or in the case of Shut Up And Let Me Go, one of the album's singles, eventually coming to grate.

It's not all bad news. Traffic Light is a sweetly understated address to a lover who won't commit, backed with gentle shakes of percussion that could have come from a school music room. And We Walk starts off sounding like that pop album staple, the piano ballad, but soon becomes something tougher and more distinctive.

Overall, though, it's a shame to report that We Started Nothing is frequently annoying and ultimately forgettable. It's definitely a pop record – but there's just not enough snap and crackle.