Yours Truly, Angry Mob

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If he cared a whit about subtlety or nuance, Wilson could wrench deeper meaning from his pithy observations.

Some user-contributed text on this page is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License; additional terms may apply.The final single "Love's Not a Competition (But I'm Winning)" was released as a collector's edition 7" single on 12 November 2007, with The Little Ones' cover of "Everything Is Average Nowadays" as a B-side. The album topped the UK Albums Chart and the band released the singles "Everything Is Average Nowadays" on 21 May 2007 and "The Angry Mob" on 20 August 2007. With a bit of distance, Employment certainly sounds like a debut record from a band rushed into the spotlight. The band revealed to NME in October 2006 that they had recorded 22 songs and hoped to whittle that number down to 13 or 14 for the final album.

The central flaw of Mob-- and it's a profound one-- is that its attempt to refine Employment's boundless levels of boyish vigor with introspection and intellect comes across as tired and bored. If "Mob" ended with that bit of resignation, it would be fine, but the coda brings the groans, explaining the titular mass not as rowdy bar patrons or concert attendees, but society itself: "We are the angry mob, we read the papers everyday/ We like who we like, we hate who we hate, but we're oh so easily swayed. He accidentally explains it best in "Thank You Very Much" (itself a pale retread of "I Predict a Riot"'s rhythm bed): "This should be a thrill, but it feels like a drill. If your previous album was a slow-burning success story, it can be hard to be expected to hit the ground running on the follow-up.In Japan, "Boxing Champ" and "Everything Is Average Nowadays" were added together to make one track, at a running time of 4:15. It's perhaps not surprising that the band is unable to keep their Employment energy level intact, but Mob's level of cynicism seems a bit of an overcompensation, as if the second record is an extended dreary hangover from the drunken escapade of the first. It was released on 23 February 2007 in Belgium and the Netherlands, 26 February 2007 in the rest of the world by B-Unique Records and in March in North America by Universal Motown. Essentially a repackaged summation of Employment's dynamism, "Ruby" pauses ever so slightly before hitting its simple, repeated refrain, ostensibly to increase its potency on impact. But On Mob, he's clearly trying for something more, yet seemingly unaware that he's caught in a rut.