Taking the psychedelic guitar noise of a band like My Bloody Valentine and introducing it to simple pop songs might sound like an interesting prospect. On their second album, Numbered Days, that’s exactly what Los Angeles quartet The Meeting Places have done. Chase Harris (vocals and rhythm guitar), Scott Macdonald (guitar), Arthur Chan (bass) and Dean Yoshihara (drums) have followed up their debut, Find Yourself Along the Way, with 32 minutes of straight forward pop tunes awash with reverb and distortion. However, what sounds like an interesting reworking of a fool-proof formula fails due to, among other things, a good old fashioned lack of inspiration.

When the opening track, Love Like the Movies begins, the most immediately noticeable element is Harris’ vocals. His singing is bland, nasally and often out of tune which doesn’t help the fact that the melodies themselves are unadventurous and simplistic. It seems that this lazy, tuneless vocal style is deliberate because it actually matches the guitar work quite well but rather than sounding detached in an interesting way, it manages to alienate and irritate in equal measure. Far be it from me to challenge the artistic licence of a budding young rock band but when pop music doesn’t offer either engaging melodies or a charismatic vocal, you’d hope it had some other secret weapon with which to win over its audience. The Stills debut album Logic Will Break Your Heart is one example in recent memory where lazy, apathetic pop music managed to charm and entertain without seeming to try. That album resembles Numbered Days in many ways including the sepia toned melodies and angsty vocal style. The Stills were able to steal the show with infectious rhythms and a general reluctance to follow a formula. Numbered Days, on the other hand, just seems to play out by the numbers, never offering the listener a sense that something unexpected could happen or even fully investing in its own enterprise.

Of course it would be remiss of me not to mention that Numbered Days becomes easier to connect with after repeated listens. The ten songs on offer here are trim and to the point. Most notable is the light and lyrical Until it’s Gone which is quite nicely textured with piano and a pleasant female vocal. Elsewhere, Sink Into Stone sees The Meeting Places at their noisiest and full of drone rock splendour. Still, the more you listen to Numbered Days the faster you realise that you’re looking for reasons to like it and coming up with far less than your trouble is worth.