Album Review In Ghost Colours - Cut Copy

If 2007 was France's year then 2008 already looks like it belongs to the Australians. With a good album from Muscles already plus a forthcoming one from Van She, Modular are rapidly looking like the new Ed Banger.

One of Modular's best loved then, Cut Copy are back with their sophmore effort. Where Bright Like Neon Love was all pop hooks, crackle and sheen however, In Ghost Colours is immediately more considered:

Bright Like Neon Love had moments of introspection - the superb 'Zap Zap', with a delicate "This heart is breaking" refrain, for example. The difference here is that these make up the main emotional currency of the album and, quite simply, they are combined with a more layered, sophisticated sound. In Ghost Colours features co-production of Tim Goldsworthy and it shows - this year seems destined to see Goldsworthy and Erol Alkan continually challenge each other to see who can better who.

So the vocals on 'Out There On The Ice' are backed by a fairly typical Cut Copy bassline, but this is in itself enveloped in shimmering touches of synths, snatches of samples and the odd subtle use of acid. Once it melts away into lead single 'Lights and Magic' with its hook-laden chorus it all combines to create something that sounds far more mature. Whilst it references older material it sounds unmistakeably contempory.

Just as this year's other best albums, Hercules and Love Affair's self-titled debut and Mystery Jets' Twenty One, it's the subtle touches that elevate it to greatness. The live drums on 'Unforgettable Season' for example, the fuzzy guitars that open 'So Haunted' before the chorus blows them away with its swirling synths and gently picked melodies, the sax that breaks through the 90s house of 'Hearts On Fire'.

2008 is already shaping up to be a vintage year for music and In Ghost Colours could just be the best of the best. As 'Strangers In The Wind floats away it becomes clear what makes this album so great: it sounds like waking up from a great dream - it's a shame it has to end but you're glad it happened. From Kratwerk to New Order, In Ghost Colours sounds like every great electro-pop record of the past thirty years.

BP x

Album Review: Moshi Moshi Singles Club - Various

BlackPlastic heart Moshi Moshi for the following reasons:

1. They are independent.
2. They have previously signed and released records by such greats as Bloc Party, Hot Chip and Hot Club De Paris.
3. Their name sounds like something innappropriate an Eskimo (sorry, Inuit) might say to a member of the opposite sex.
4. They have a little 'club' they use to release great breakthrough 7" singles through and then they go and bundle these together in one great CD for the slow or the lazy.

The first Moshi Moshi Singles Club therefore consists of 14 pretty consistently enjoyable songs, some of which will be from people you know, some of which won't. Yet.

Matt & Kim's 'Silver Tiles' sounds like it is being banged out on a three-year-old's toy drum with vocals that match. It's so infectious resisting it would be like trying to solve all the world's problems with a sit down protest: pointless.

'Caroline's A Victim' continues to please in the fact that it not only sounds like the Kate Nash song most likely to upset your mum but is also a pop reference to The Killers (whose fans are apparently called Victims). Lykke Li's 'Little Bit' is the opposite - a delicate, loveable reverb heavy plea for love.

Meanwhile The Slow Club's 'Because We're Dead' is ramshackle, laid back and effortless. It sounds like a spurned lover you can't resist any more yet also knows they are too damn good for you.

Late of the Pier represent one of the better known bands here and their single 'Bathroom Gurgle' still sounds fresh - wonkey basslines and 80s vocals helping to generate excitement for the Erol Alkan produced debut album this year. The breakdown halfway through prior to the dancing bit is still pure pomp and is all the better for it.

Of course you already know Friendly Fires' 'Paris' but it is perhaps the singles clubs biggest catch so far... This track does more for French tourism than you'd get out of one-hundred monkeys chained to one-hundred Macbook Pros locked in L'Office De Tourisme for eternity.

What's great about the Moshi Moshi singles club is not so much what has come before but what might be up ahead.

BP x

Album Review: Crystal Castles - Crystal Castles

With the scale and the sheer duration of the hype that has surrounded them you'd be forgiven for thinking that this must be Crystal Castle's third album rather than their first and yet after all this time it is still good to finally get to grips with their sound in an album format.

Any band that manages to tip a hat to Death From Above 1979 whilst recontectializing the sound of one of their few recordings earns respect from BlackPlastic, particularly when it is done as
convincingly as on album opener 'Untrust Us'. It does well to encapsulate the melancholic 8bit derrangement of the Crystal Castles sound and yet it is blown out of the water by what follows: 'Alice Practice' is already known as the track that got accidentally picked up on MySpace and lead to the band's fame and yet it retains its status as a call to arms. At once evoking the feeling of a scorching summer's day whilst simultaneously operating as a platform for both Alice's vocal freak outs and the aural stuttering that acts as the counterpoint to the melodies. It doesn't care about songs or albums or genres or even you very much... 'Alice Practice' does as it pleases and you can either tag along or get off the bus.

So a good start. Yet the pressure, whilst maintained gradually wears off. Crystal Castles is uncompromising in the same way Death From Above were uncompromising and the same way Test Icicles were uncompromising. There are plenty more good tracks - former single 'Air War' still shines, a glittering stomp that sounds like your cell phone transforming into a hand grenade. 'Vanished', a spooky reimagining of Van She's 'Sexual City' is also a standout.

If anything the problem is that the audience may not be ready - as when a listener experiences a new genre there is a danger that the subtle differences that mark out each composition are list in the noise of their similarities. Crystal Castles' grinding 8bit punk begins to segue into one when stretched out over an hour as it is here. One can't help but wish for perhaps a little less or the introduction of anoter artist or two for the duo to play off, indeed their early remix of the Klaxon's 'Atlantis To Interzone' remains one the best things they have done.

And yet... BlackPlastic cannot help but think the listener is the one at fault here. Crystal Castles are just doing what they wantand staying true to their vision and it almost feels wrong to judge so soon: one to revisit over the coming months.

BP x

Album Review: Twenty One - Mystery Jets

It's worth pointing out, as a mild preamble to the main course, that Twenty One is being called such things as a marked departure for Mystery Jets... A maturing of their sound. Without wishing to let the cat out of the bag, let's just say this is a good record. But let us also take a moment to note that Making Dens, the album it follows, is far better than many would have you believe. 'Can't Fool Me Dennis' is beautiful pop and 'Horse Drawn Cart' makes progressive rock sound accessible and is certain to inspire empathy. What's more, 'Soluble In Air' is the sound of fresh, youthful, unrequited love... Boundless in enthusiasm and impossible to criticize or rationalize. Far too many folk have written this album off and to do so is foolish.

Twenty One wastes no time now it is finally here... 'Hideaway' starts the precedings with an air raid siren and the type of bassline the Klaxons would be proud of. It's a desperate yelp of a record, a lover spurned and frantic to set things right. Lead single, 'Young Love' still has cult-classic written all over it, capturing the curious affection of a stranger's infactuation perfectly with Laura Marling's vocals adding a further layer of class.

Every track here can justify its own comments but in a bid to save some surprises for the listener we shall merely highlight a few. The eighties touches present on 'Half In Love With Elizabeth' take the song to a whole new place following the rough edits that leaked last year whilst 'Flakes' is still nothing less than a beautiful, heart-stopping ballad that melts away in the head. Totally irresistably, 'Two Doors Down' is an eighties pop song recreated perfectly and is Twenty One's own 'Soluble In Air': romantic and unstoppable, you know if you lived two doors down from the Mystery Jets you wouldn't stay single for long, such is the determination on show here.

Erol Alkan's production shines through on this album and he truly demonstrates his worth. Whether it is in the shimmers that break through the melodies on 'Young Love' or the eighties stabs of 'Two Doors Down' he brings something new to the mix. More importantly he never fails to use the lightest of touches. Nothing here gets even remotely close to being a gimick, which ensures the record maintains a timeless sound.

The other reviews are right when they argue that Twenty One is a mature record. Where they are wrong is in their assertions that Making Dens wasn't and equally that this album is anything less than excellent.

BP x

Album Review: Get Awkward - Be Your Own Pet

Maybe it is BlackPlastic or maybe it is the world that has changed, but 2008 seems a much more suitable time for Be Your Own Pet. Their self-titled debut certainly made an ikpac on those that listened to it but, with the exception of the cycling anthem 'Bicycle, Bicycle, You Are My Bicycle', and in contrast to their peers Death From Above 1979 nothing quite managed to transcend the general racket it was born of.

Times have changed and a scuffle with the same album leaves BlackPlastic wondering why it wasn't on heavy rotation at the time. No matter: BYOP are back and Get Awkward sees all the attitude left in-tact.

Crashing down like a band determined to tear through their setlist as quickly as possible, 'Super Soaked' wastes no time or effort in demonstrating what Get Awkward is about: More of the same. If the world doesn't get what you are trying to do then just knock the volume up, increase the tempo and do it some more...

...And maybe it's just BlackPlastic's punk tendancies shining through but, in BYOP's case, this form of near religious fanaticism sure is appealing. 'Heart Throb' is a fantastic trash-ode to the joys of an extra-curricular crush whilst 'Becky' creates the perfect soundtrack to high-school bullying.

If noisy, bluesy, lo-fi punk-metal isn't you thing you will probably still not like Be Your Own Pet... But if the last album left you at least luke-warm then BlackPlastic suggests you re-visit. Be Your Own Pet may not be prepared to change, you might.

BP x