Available on: Rough Trade LP

Serotonin represents the third album proper from Eel Pie Island-hailing (look it up) collective Mystery Jets, and is about as far from the noisy prog riot of first album Making Dens as you can get. Both Making Dens and its follow-up Twenty One were built on a foundation of catchy pop songs – the likes of ‘Young Love’ and ‘Two Doors Down’ clearly marketed at a mainstream audience – but also contained a strong sense of individuality and penchant for musical risk-taking, as demonstrated by the band choosing Erol Alkan over more established applicants to executive produce the latter. Unfortunately Serotonin contains little of that, so if you were already wary of the mainstream pop edge that had started to manifest over Twenty One, then it’s not for you.

As an album, Serotonin seems to obey every pop song stereotype: nearly all the songs stick to the three-and-a-half minute rule, with a clear chorus-driven structure. Lyrics are simple, often to the point of ridiculousness (try out “If love is just a race / I never come first place”, or “when life gives you lemons / you make lemonade” for size), and the melodies so catchy they already seem familiar. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing; Mystery Jets are obviously good at what they’ve set out to do here – it’s just that what they’ve seemingly set out to do is make a collection of songs that would sound great on a T-Mobile advert. Songs like ‘Melt’ will go down a treat with teenage girls lusting over unobtainable objects of affection and imagining it was written about them – maybe I’m just the wrong market, but I miss the idiosyncratic chanting and unusual percussion that took centre-stage on past Jets albums.

Perhaps it’s inevitable that this band, who started off making songs as magical as ‘Zootime’ would resort to an album of safe, Americana-inspired pop. But while I’m sure the safe side of the Mystery Jets will go down a storm, the individuality of their previous albums has been sacrificed as a result. Hopefully their next release will redeem that.

Josie McLean