This review was published first in AUT University’s student newspaper Te Waha Nui.

Cobra Starship’s third album Hot Mess is just that, minus the hot.

It gets off to a great start with Nice guys finish last and Pete Wentz is the only reason we’re famous. Both songs have superfluous amounts of energy.

To tie off the beginning and best part of the album Good girls go bad with Leighton Meester, from TV’s Gossip Girl, is a smash hit. There is no denying it is a great song, great single, and people love it.

But once those three songs are said and done, the energy dissipates like air out of a balloon.

The remaining eight songs, one would think there is something good, when you have some of the biggest names in music, writing and producing the majority of your album.

When Pete Wentz, Patrick Stump, Kara DioGuardi, Kevin Rudolf, and the biggest surprise of all, pop duo Daryl Hall and John Oates litter the liner notes, some form of magic has to be going on. Alas, this is not Harry Potter.

Although You’re not in on the joke brings back sounds of Snakes on a Plane, those sounds do not stick around, unlike that tune.

You are pulled in to a false sense of ending well, when ultimately all it does is fail with The world will never do.

Written on the back of the front cover booklet is “Cobra starship is still a band”…well maybe they shouldn’t be.

Maybe that is a little harsh; they do have a keytar player, so they already stand apart from most other alternative bands in existence.

But for being one of the up and comers, who produce an amazing live act, this album is a let down.

Perhaps the down fall was titling one of their songs Pete Wentz is the only reason we’re famous, at least they have been consistent in the Decaydance record label of having obscure song titles.

It does have potential to be one of those hidden treasures that with time, and maybe a little bit of torture, can be rather enjoyable and even great.

But for now, if this is how their live shows are heading too, there will be one less fan in the crowd come March.