Situation

The Situation are a band with a personality crisis. For a band from Philadelphia, they’re not very subtle in their longing to sound like they hail from the other side of the Atlantic. Their self-titled debut isn’t quite so obvious in its worship of all things British, and they’ve definitely got a more eclectic record collection than they had three years ago. Yet that doesn’t necessarily work to their advantage simply because all those elements don’t quite come together as well as they did previously. It all starts off well enough with the faux reggae of "Amoralia,” which transforms into a Stone Roses-like jangle. But after a few more tracks, it begins to reek of recycling other people’s ideas and not necessarily in an inspired way. They almost hit the target from time to time, but most of the time, their aim is not very good.