Grade: B+ | Liam Gallagher is finally right about something regarding Blur. The outspoken Oasis frontman has spent years bashing his Brit-pop counterparts, and recently taken to insulting his country’s newest crop of rock by calling the acts … gasp … “a bad version of Blur.”

That was the case two years ago when the ever-cheery icon took fellow Englishmen, the Kaiser Chiefs, to task about the group’s debut. While that attack on the quintet was a bit off the mark in 2005, the comparison is spot-on now.

“Yours Truly, Angry Mob” has replaced the herky-jerky synths with moody monotone ones, while the jangly guitars’ chords ring out longer than their quickly paced predecessors. The urgency, the atmosphere and even the themes are a more cockney version of that first record. Simply put, this sophomore album is just more English.

Even vocalist Ricky Wilson’s smarmy inflection has taken to sounding like Blur’s Damon Albarn. And, while doing so, he belts out a series of non sequiturs that sound like he and his bandmates are warn out.

Shouting, “‘Cuz this should be a thrill/ but it feels like a drill” during the tune “Thank You Very Much” echoes of a man whose job has become too much work. Begging, “Love’s not a competition/ But I’m winning,” on a song with the same name, makes Wilson seem tired of music’s bloodthirsty attitude. With lyrics such as, “I’m just waiting for the man to come with all my things/ And I’m just waiting for another man to take it all” (in “Learnt My Lesson Well”), Wilson just sounds unhappy.

But pleasantries rarely inspire great rock ‘n’ roll, which might explain why his second record is so darn engaging. Its conviction never comes across as dogmatic or self-loathing, yet it’s always sincere – no matter what Liam Gallagher says.