There couldn’t really be a more fitting name for Thieves Like Us’ debut album than Play Music. No two words could better encapsulate the utter banality of the 11 tracks that make up this 45-minute LP. Play Music sounds like it was made only to satisfy a need to fill space, as if listening to music is simply human nature’s answer to silence.Play Music slops together flat slabs of electronic, each track seemingly trying to out-fox the last by using the same drum sequence but with an ever-so-slightly-different vocal slathered on the top. At no point during the album does the tempo change or the musical style get varied. This is faceless, soulless, heartless synthetics in its prime as this Parisian trio pursue only what they know, and care nothing for what they don’t. Perhaps the most revealing facet of this album’s mediocrity is its best track; ‘Drugs In My Body’. A sensation when it was released way back in 2005, the sheer exuberance of this debut single is at a loss almost 3 years later in amongst its album counterparts, riddled with sludgy beats and such minimal production as to leave even the most hopeful listener cold.Play Music is kind of like the musical equivalent of instant mashed potato; a lazy filler, a substitute for something of real substance, and most worryingly, numbingly mundane and instantly forgettable. 30% Thieves Like Us on Myspace