PB&J entered 2009 primed for superstardom. They then promptly dropped the ball. Welcome, ladies and gents, to yet another unfortunate example of the inability of modern-day bands whose star is on the ascent to spin early promise into anything more than a stink cloud of blogosphere-induced flatulence.

After the release of Peter Bjorn & John's 2006 LP "Writer's Block," Kanye West latched onto and championed their whistle-happy buzz track "Young Folks," setting the stage for the group to climb the ladder all the way to the top. The guys then offered us instrumental stop-gap record "Seaside Rock," a move that seemed to promise that the real follow-up was going to be even more colossal than we'd originally anticipated.

"Living Thing" kicks off with "The Feeling," which is honestly one of the worst songs I've ever heard. The song sports what vaguely passes for a melody (instrumentally bolstered by nothing but bass drum, handclaps, and flat synth washes), and the vocals are just barely phoned in. This is bad news, coming after the surprising, idiosyncratic warmth of their last record.

The red flag becomes even more prominently waved with track two, "It Don't Move Me" (I'm unmoved to even waggishly slag off the title), which sounds like a rip-off of Eddie Murphy's "Party All The Time." I'm not even kidding. There truly isn't a single song on this album that rises above terrible.

On top of it all, Peter Bjorn & John also can't seem to get their album titles straight. It's their 2006 breakout that would have more aptly been called "Living Thing." While this, unquestionably, represents a classic case of "Writer's Block."

Skip this album. Life's too short to subject yourself to such uninspired twaddle.