After a frosty reception for their follow up to their hit-laden debut album, is it fair to brand The Wombats as all filler no killer? Chris Price reports.

As The Wombats’ tour bus pulls up on the Kent coast, the three-piece outfit might feel success has become a poisoned chalice.

Where so many bands trying to get noticed fail to write a song suitable for radio airplay, The Wombats have become masters of the genre.

Backfire at the Disco, Moving to New York, Kill the Director, Let’s Dance to Joy Division – all are songs that have filled dance floors at clubs across the nation. All came from their platinum-selling first record, 2007’s The Wombats Proudly Present: A Guide to Love Loss & Desperation – and all are sure fire to raise a smile.

So when the cheery indie threesome released their second record in April this year, they must have been shocked at the lukewarm critical reception received for The Wombats Proudly Present... This Modern Glitch.

Native Liverpudlians Matthew “Murph” Murphy, Dan Haggis and their Norwegian bassist Tord Øverland-Knudsen had filled the album with more boogie-inducing tunes like Tokyo (Vampires & Wolves), Anti-D, Jump Into the Fog and Techno Fan. Yet it was lambasted as “landfill indie” for doing so.

NME admitted the first record had a certain charm but said that This Modern Glitch “despite trying hard to replicate that charm by making everything faster and synthier – is fit only for padding out mid-afternoon festival sets.”

Q branded it “slick and sometimes overpolished” and a host of other reviewers jumped on the anti-marsupial bandwagon, banishing The Wombats to mediocrity for eternity.

I might be speaking out of turn here, but it seems harsh that a band with such commercial appeal should be branded failures simply for pandering to the masses’ cravings for upbeat guitar tunes to drive home to.

Regardless of critical reception, The Wombats have sold out several of their UK shows ahead of their trip to Folkestone’s Leas Cliff Hall on Friday, September 23.

True the band might have taken the slightly all-too-obvious step of making synth-laden tracks that pandered to the popularity of the La Rouxs, Everything Everythings and Metronomys of this world.

Yet had they gone in an altogether different direction no doubt they would have faced calls to 'stick at what you’re good at’ had it not been a Mercury Prize-worthy effort.

“I felt like I was rebelling against what we were as a band,” Murph explained of their new direction. “Somehow we’ve come back round and amalgamated bits of that into the newer stuff and it’ll hopefully make it better.

“There are elements that are so different. There’s songs that are akin to the first album but it feels like we’ve escalated. I’m 100% certain that some of the songs on this album are the best we’ve ever put out.”

As they take to the stage for another packed out show in Kent, who are we to argue with Murph, the frontman of a platinum-selling rock band? Who are we?

The Wombats play at Folkestone’s Leas Cliff Hall on Friday, September 23. Tickets £17. Box office 01303 228600.