I just feel like its the classic case of an artist having years and the urgency to write their first album, and then not knowing how to draw from that same well after they blew up.

Id almost put Arctic Monkey's in this category as far as bands who were on the cusp even though I wasn't a huge fan of them at the time. They were able to avoid that slump in their sound that was starting to show in album two by switching up their sound into a sleazier Americana type band with Queens of the Stone age producing their next few records...while Bloc Party kept on doing rock band slump avoiding cliche's to weakening effect (we will use more synths! lets go a little heavier!) as opposed to honing their songs.