This record probably sounds good if you’re stoned. I was not stoned when I heard it. The Dandys were probably stoned when they made it, even though they are getting towards old now and have children and marriages and should start to think about dropping that sort of thing.

I am a Dandys fan. I know a lot of people who are not. When people claim that they are lazy, terrible, egotistical musicians, I point out that they have made some brilliant pop songs. I think partially it’s because I want to live in a Dandy Warhols world. Sex, drugs, shallow pop music and bright, bright colours. The Dandys are cool. I want to be cool. So I joined their mailing list.

Their latest offering is pretty lazy, I’ll admit. They’ve always had this oozy sonic mud sound playing in the background, behind poppy guitar hooks and simple drums. Now they’ve brought the mud to the front and kind of dragged the whole lot through a blender. The album sounds muted, it sounds fuzzed. It doesn’t sound fresh and it feels repeated. I’m pretty sure large sections do in fact repeat.

Maybe it’ll please prog-rock fans. I wouldn’t know. I’m not a prog-rock fan. Does a final track that is thirteen minutes long with illegible spoken words count as prog-rock? It seems like the kind of thing that bands do when they know they’re going to sell albums anyway and don’t really put enough effort in. It’s not the kind of thing I want to listen to. The album booklet contains a lot of snapshots of the Dandy members, including one of Courtney Taylor-Taylor with Mick Jagger. Favourite song would be track 7, ‘Love Song’ because it uses banjo. At least I think that’s banjo – the whole album is so effected-out it’s hard to tell.

But this is a harsh first listen. Maybe it’ll take a day, maybe a month, but I think I’ll return to Earth To The Dandy Warhols. I don’t hate it. It just isn’t as easy to like as their previous albums (all of which pretty much scream, ‘Come and get me!’). It probably won’t win the Dandys many new fans. Or who knows? Maybe the boring motherfuckers will finally get it. Or dig it. Whatever.