There is something reassuring about a band reaching its fifth album and deciding that, rather than reinventing itself, it might be worth remembering what made it exciting in the first place. After the glossy dystopian theatrics of 2023’s Dead Club City, Nothing But Thieves returns with Stray Dogs, trading conceptual ambition for five musicians making considerable noise and apparently enjoying themselves enormously. Unfortunately, the results are rather less adventurous than intended.
The Essex quintet has always occupied an interesting position in British rock: too ambitious to be dismissed as conventional arena rock, yet occasionally too enamored of enormous choruses to venture far beyond it. At their best,…

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