Pitchfork may earn a portion of sales from products that are purchased through our site as part of our Affiliate Partnerships with retailers. If he cared a whit about subtlety or nuance, Wilson could wrench deeper meaning from his pithy observations. 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. The Angry Mob" raises the stakes a bit, alternating clenched-teeth dares with limber capitulations, resulting in the album's most enjoyable song.

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. 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. Wilson attempts to force a barroom competitor into independent thought: "You're winding yourself up until you're turning blue, repeating everything that you've read," before giving up: "It's only 'cause you came here with your brothers, too; if you came here on your own you'd be dead.The Buzzcocks-referencing "Everything Is Average Nowadays" mines similar territory ("everyone is sitting on the fence"), yet the band didn't get the message that they weren't supposed to prove their claim by illustrating how blandness sounds. At Metacritic, which assigns a normalized rating out of 100 to reviews from mainstream critics, the album has received an average score of 61, based on 29 reviews.

The band has released seven albums as of 2020 and have released 27 singles, including the hits I Predict a Riot, Oh My God, Ruby and Never Miss a Beat. Use of this site constitutes acceptance of our User Agreement and Privacy Policy and Cookie Statement and Your California Privacy Rights. 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.

Wilson's preoccupation with failed (and failing) romantic relationships continues with "Love Is Not a Competition (But I'm Winning)" as the logical followup to Employment's "Everyday I Love You Less and Less", the sentiment from which was properly identified on this Web site in Joe Tangari's Employment review as barely concealed pining. 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.