Allston music scene's showing me how out of the loop I am. Get with it!
It's an album of two halves - the first is a lot of fun, with that early-aughts-relentless ts-ts-ts-ts-TS-ts-ts-ts-ts-ts-TS-ts cymbaltap wave of mutilation, sounding like an even-more-precise Futureheads, Franz Ferdinand or The Strokes*. Each of the first 5 or so songs has that perfectly crooned vocal hooks, rife with dancefloor longing, and at least one standout signature synth gesture. Let's Go Surfing in particular is kind of a a brilliant combination: Weezer-simple yearning, Young Folks whistles, all atop a relentless, hard-on-the-3 motorik. Music for taking the 405 to Malibu.
Surf Wax Germany.
Suddenly everything runs really ambient and heavy right as you hit Down by The Water though (which weirdly mirrors The Futureheads' debut's slowest track, Danger of the Water?). I'm all for a slow jam in the eye of the cymbalstorm, but the album doesn't ever quite rise out if it, sounding a step slow thereafter. Maybe you can only sustain that kind of pace for so long, but that energy drop kind of keeps this from being a straightthrough listen for me.
I mostly like it though. Each song is a bit too repetitive, running on a bit too long, but there's a good, steady little heart at the middle. Plus, I have to confess to some degree of nostalgia: see the namedrops above, not to mention the Ben Folds wink of Forever and Ever Amen. It strikes me as an album aimed squarely at the slightly older hipster set, which I guess I have to (reluctantly, on several levels) count myself among - well done then, The Drums 3.5/5
You might like this if: you spent your 20's listening to precise thrubthrubthrub bass and tststs drums and want to dance like its two thousand and five.
* and a little bit like something the World's Largest Band might have generated.
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