People keep telling me what a great comeback Athlete have made with Wires. I have to disagree, I think it sounds like a novelty act trying to turn serious and failing. Every time it comes on the radio my heart sinks.

With that in mind, it was with trepidation that I put the band’s second album, Tourist, into my CD player for the first time.

The album opens badly with Chances, a song that plods along painfully until the band finally put it out of its misery. Things pick up briefly with the next track, Half Light, though Joel Potts’s vocal “quirks” are at their most irritating here. And that’s pretty much that, on the whole Tourist is either dull or just plain annoying, the only vaguely listenable tracks are If I Found Out and the uncharacteristically danceable Modern Mafia.

If you really can’t wait for the next Coldplay album then this might tide you over. You’d have to be pretty desperate though.

Label: Parlophone
Website: www.athlete.mu
Release date: 31st January 2005

Tracklist:

1. Chances
2. Half Light
3. Tourist
4. Trading Air
5. Wires
6. If I Found Out
7. Yesterday Threw Everything At Me
8. Street Map
9. Modern Mafia
10. Twenty Four Hours
11. I Love