One of the best publicity stunts pulled off last year in the music world was the "Band in the Bubble" gimmick. In this marketing ploy, Brisbane band Regurgitator, who were starting to have an extended run of boring, flop albums, were locked inside a transparent box in Melbourne, and recorded a whole album while people looked in at the creative process. It was sort of like that TV show "Big Brother", except that those in the box were a lot less attractive, a lot more entertaining, and legions of trailer trash couldn't go and apply to be a part of it.

Now, while it was certainly an entertaining, if uncreative gimmick, I had grave fears as to what the actual process would be like. I mean, recording music, properly recording music, isn't nearly as glamourous or entertaining as you might think. It involves staying awake until 2am, playing the same infernal guitar part over and over again until you finally get it right. It's sure not very interesting for a third party to watch, and the sort of studio antics that you see in documentaries are only isolated incidences of interesting stuff going on in a very long, very tedious process. Of course, the band couldn't do that sort of boring thing while they were in their "bubble", they had to be as wacky and entertaining as possible for the public. Unfortunately, while that craziness might have been entertaining in for the crowds looking in, it's resulted in an album that is sloppy, uneven, and feels like it's the punchline to some obscure joke that nobody understands.

The band's strength has always been in, as their name would suggest, regurgitating a variety of other sounds an influences into a fine paste where each individual element is unrecognisable. They got it right on albums like 1997's "Unit", which incorporated elements of heavy metal, hip hop, new wave, techno, guitar pop, and other unidentifiable things into a quickfire burst of pure anarchy. "Mish Mash", on the other hand, still has those hundreds of distinct influences, but they're not actually mashed together very well. What you're left with are a variety of "wacky" songs that sound more or less like what the band has been doing for the past ten years, but with all of the life and spontaneity sucked out of them.

Songs like the Ely-sung My Friend Robot, while decent enough on their own, are nowhere near as good as stuff that the band has done before in the past. Don't Go 2 Sleep channels "Unit" with lots of cheap-sounding keyboards through it, and it provides one of the band's few truly bizarre moments here. The quirkiness and "don't give a toss" attitude that made the band stand out in the past thought is largely gone, which is a great shame. Without that, Regurgitator are just another pop-punk band, and not one with a whole lot else to recommend them.

Whether the whole "Band in the bubble" affair was just a cynical marketing ploy to resuscitate the band's career, or whether they were truly after an interesting artistic concept, there's no doubt that it's hurt this album. All the best bits of the band are gone, and it's surprising that given the short amount of time that they had to put this together, it lacks any real feelings of spontaneity or energy. I never thought I'd say this about a Regurgitator album, but this sounds pretty flat, and just a little bit boring.