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Fresh-face Brits who sound and look like young Americans, You Me At Six have found a place in the hearts of teenagers all across the UK, and not just because they’re boy band pretty either.

Three albums in, You Me At Six average more ballads per record than Styx did in the 70s. Which is odd considering that they’ve built their reputation on a live show that’s said to be ferocious, though the people saying that usually haven’t seen Motörhead play live.

It’s mostly contemplative stuff, and outrage and emoting is reserved for what passes for rage on the punchy Time Is Money and the brooding Bite My Tongue. Tellingly, both feature guest vocalists from Parkway Drive and Bring Me The Horizon to enunciate their anger respectively.

Otherwise, it’s the quiet drama of songs like the awfully tepid No One Does It Better or the mawkish Little Bit Of Truth, a string laden paean to lyrical clichés and a lot of lolling about with your head in your hands, we’d imagine. Insipid.

Philip Wilding is a novelist, journalist, scriptwriter, biographer and radio producer. As a young journalist he criss-crossed most of the United States with bands like Motley Crue, Kiss and Poison (think the Almost Famous movie but with more hairspray). More latterly, he’s sat down to chat with bands like the slightly more erudite Manic Street Preachers, Afghan Whigs, Rush and Marillion.