GENRE(S): Rock - Indie - Synth PopPREAMBLE - Screen Printed look + The Indie Music Scene = a match made in heaven. How long before the mainstream catches on and ruins it? It might already be happening in your neighborhood!
LOOK - Not sure what Screen Printing is? Thank the Lord for Wikipedia. In layman's terms: it's a use of stencils and paint to create graphics, usually on t-shirts, but SP has stretched its tentacles into anything and everything worthy of print and type (you can literally screen print almost anything). In its technique: the simpler the shape on your stencil the easier it will be to make your mark on any product, hence the large bold colorful shapes on this album. SP has an abundance of Graphic Designers across the globe making a killing with their art, posters especially (see gigposters.com). The hand-made quality has appealed to many (yours truly included), and has struck a chord most of all with the Indie Music Scene, not surprisingly. Prepare yourself to see this look more and more when you walk into your local record store.
LISTEN - Phoenix isn't anything if not fun to listen to. Constantly steering away from the beat-box-acoustic sound they coined with Alphabetical, Phoenix heads more towards a candy-coated Dance Rock sound. Flat double tracked-sounding vocals and a bouncy beat, "1901" is a quintessential song for any turn of the new century Disco.
WAM is a great example of a "Rock" band not relying on the power of the guitar, co-opting its ambiance capabilities instead of using it to drive their songs, in turn giving just as much weight to every other instrument in their set. Thomas Mars' dry, sometimes falsetto, vocals mixed with thoughtful soft electronic keyboards adds the right touch of glamour to this record. Phoenix is aimed to please ad certainly hits the bulls-eye. Yet, the novelty of their sound tends to wear thin about 3 quarters through the record.
SPEAK - What's with European bands not singing in their native tongue? Maybe I should look into it some more. One thing I've come to know is most Europeans seem to know more than one language, as apposed to us Americans who get frustrated when crossed with someone of different nationality whom we can't communicate with.
If Phoenix was an inanimate object I would say they are a pastel colored candy necklace: it's always with you, is a comfort to have, and the color might run off on to your neck. There is nothing overly forceful here, or explosive for that matter, Phoenix is just a joy to listen to.
ALBUM GRAD - B-
ALBUM ARTWORK - C
DO WE HAVE A FIT? NEUTRAL
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