Album: The Pigeon Detectives, Emergency (Dance to the radio)

A year on from their platinum-selling debut Wait For Me, The Pigeon Detectives' Emergency illustrates the dangers of too much touring and too little writing. It's hard to turn down lucrative gig offers, but rock history is littered with acts that foundered on that Difficult Second Album.

The Detectives' case is compounded by being Yorkshire rockers with resemblances to both the Kaisers and the Monkeys, though not as catchily anthemic as the former, nor as idiosyncratically observational as the latter. Songwriter Oli Main's depictions of youthful indiscretions and inter-sexual manoeuverings rarely exceed the commonplace, and there's only so many variations on the themes of kiss-off and unrequited yearning that one album can sustain.

It would be nice to hear a few more tracks whose hooks didn't rely on strident guitar ostinatos. The exception is "Keep On Your Dress", a Libertine-esque disparagement of a drunken party girl advising her to "leave with some dignity, please darling, won't you?"

Pick of the album:'Keep On Your Dress', 'This Is an Emergency'