Sequels, as anyone who ever saw Police Academy 5 will tell you, are always a mistake. George And Mildred, despite Yootha Joyce's negligees, never quite lived up to the majesty of Man About The House and that rehash of Are You Being Served? was unspeakably lame, apart from those evergreen jokes about Mrs Slocombe's pussy. So any follow-up to 1994's near-masterpiece 'Wide Eyed And Ignorant' was always going to be a bit of a tricky manoeuvre for A House.

'Wide Eyed...', the Dublin sextet's fourth album, was their 'Parklife'; the time when their heart-hugging themes (coming to terms with finally growing up, the realisation that love never gets any easier) came together with an entire album of bubbly tunes, like a less-inebriated The Beautiful South. So the question was; would album number five be It Ain't Half Hot, Mum or You Rang M'Lud? It's worse than that, 'No More Apologies' is Hi-De-Hi!: a shadow of its former self that won't lay down and die. Sure, A House still have tear-plucking lyrics about the bitter twists of romance like 'Cry Easily' ("I cry/But only when I'm on my own"), but have neglected to include the tunes. And like a sitcom without the jokes, you're always expecting a belly laugh, particularly with the occasional bone-rattling punchline like 'Love Is' or the Baby Bird-y 'Clotheshorse', but when they don't come, the disappointment is magnified.

'No More Apologies' is by no means a bad album, but after the head-back, rocking-heels bellow of 'Wide Eyed...', it can't help but fall as flat as a gag from the eighth series of Bread. Love, as A House will no doubt tell you, is never as good the second time around.