Absolutely without spark and wholly forgettable.

The intensity on Billy Talent III feels the same as the intensity of the band's live show, awkwardly forced and absolutely repellent.

In truth, it feels rather lightweight, as do much of Ryan James and Tomas Greenhalf's more adventurous flourishes, seldom though they are. As the narrative unfolds, nothing arrives at the punch of promising earlier efforts.

You know what you're getting with Good Charlotte, and while it's all very well and respectable to make shapes on the dance floor to one of their tunes after several pints, buying this album is both pointless and foolish. It's a pop album; just burn the singles if you must.

This is not just the band’s worst record, it’s also the worst record with any profile to be released this year.

Devoid of inspiration, lacking in any edge, this is pathetic.

This aggressive tone is a constant throughout and pretty much breaks new boundaries in sounding absolutely ridiculous.

Don't you want to think? Don't you enjoy thinking? Or do you instead prefer listening to background whining? Are you happy to settle for this?

This is a largely irritating and fairly hollow unit shifter, that despite its upbeat nature feels like a cynical move to market.

It is the preponderance of bland dance tracks (the inane 'Go Hard (La.La.La)', 'Twerkin'' and the abysmal 'luV haus' et al) lacking the wit of her previous singles, which consign this debut to a failure.

Iglu & Hartly are collectively giving the nation a wedgy and nobody seems to even care, that is why this is the worst album of the year.

Where the was once teen angst, there is nowt but middle-aged resignation. And no, the lyrics to ‘Ironic’ still aren’t bloody ironic.

Ultimately, despite some innovation, United Nations of Sound cannot transcend the presence of its architect, who renders half the tracks fundamentally unlistenable with his horrible attempts to play gospel preacher or loverman.

All in all, it’s a shambles. Incarnation No 4 lacks the interesting feminine insight of Rihanna’s latest, the flamboyance and ‘balls’ of Lady Gaga, the nous of Annie, anything approaching the vocal talents of Beyoncé or the nonsensical slapstick fun of Girls Aloud.

Perhaps the worst aspect of ONe is how on autopilot the band sounds. Even the flat-out rockers – like the opener, 'Teahouse Of The Spirits' – contain no guitar pyrotechnics and come off sounding limp and perfunctory.

Lil Wayne’s status and influence is now clearly working against him, the choice to release a rock record has backfired, yet obviously no-one has had the guts or inclination to tell him that the overblown choruses and riffs of Rebirth drag him away from the in-your-face lyricism and unorthadox flows that he is best at.

There isn't really an awful lot else to say. Famous First Words might not be the worst record you'll hear this year, but it's certainly one of the most pointless.

Yet none of this is enough to relieve the air that everything on Curse Our Love has been intentionally dumbed down to make it as easily digestible as possible. Above all this album's great many sins, this is what offends the most.

By psychobilly's own modern standards it's serviceable, faithful, consistent and good for a groggy pogo, but in the greater scheme of things there's very little here to nourish the modern punk fan.