Wednesday, May 30, 2007
Reviews:: Scissors for Lefty Underhanded Romance
Two songs into the new Scissor for Lefty record and I was wondering if they were the new “buzz band” from the UK. Mixing in dance punk, synths, crunched guitars, and choppy vocals usually means the band was an art school project from some Bristol or Liverpool group of 18 year-olds.Instead, I found that the band was from San Francisco and as the album continued to play I found myself enjoying the record more and more. It could be easy to just point out the bands they sound like (Franz Ferdinand, traces of the Cure, Pulp, earlier Rosebuds on X’s are Forever, the Strokes on the catchy Got Your Moments, a crazy disco/Kaiser Chiefs hybrid on Mama Your Boys Will Find A Home) and call it a day, but usually bands that are derivative exist with an underlying sense of pretension that I don’t hear in this band.
They seem quite unashamed of wanting to write catchy, hook laden tracks for people to dance to, but are not driven by it. The slinky Wandering Arms shows that the band can exist without a sweat covered glaze, and vocally you can’t help but think of the great Jarvis Cocker when Garza breathes his way through pauses and falsettos (the album closer Bring Us a Brick could have easily snuck onto Cocker’s self titled solo record). They mix in soaring choruses, like on Save it Cory, but don’t try to add a false sense of significance. That sincerity and enjoyment powers the tracks and helps it stand out from the countless other acts trying to write the same types of songs.
I think this debut album is one you can’t help but play over and over again (especially once you put aside the obvious skepticism that results from the NME backing). It’s a fun record that will surface at a lot of BBQs this summer and if you can get passed judging it, you might just find yourself loving a lot of the songs they write.
MP3:: Ghetto Ways
web site :: myspace :: more tracks
Subscribe to the hill
Subscribe via email
Post a Comment