Album Review: The Adventures of Cowboy and Miniman

There seems to be new public enthusiasm for the cut and paste (dare we dredge up the genre-definition of 'big beat'?) pop shinnanigans in the vein of The Go! Team and The Avalanches of late - just look at the success Sonny J is currently seeing in the UK. It is into this mini-genre that Des Peres unleash their latest album, The Adventures of Cowboy and Miniman.

Only this one is schizophrenic. Veering from moments where it relishes in its own sense of explosive pop abandon on 'Dynamite' to the moody LCD Soundsystem with a guitar solo of 'Landed On The Edge Of The World' this is an album not afraid to try things. The album opens with the hip-house party jam of 'Sudden Thought', complete with lush orchestration and cheeky raps yet the closing track is a nice little scratchy punk-funk number. If variety is the spice of life then Des Peres have no worries.

As an album, The Adventures of... can be summed up by the camp 60s freak-out of 'Little Man Falls Out Of The Sky". Sampling the song used as the show's theme-tune, it's like Beck on Eurotrash. Or is it actually just like a McCartney Beatles tune? Who cares, either way it's a lot of fun and reflective of the rest of the album.

Fractured it may be and Des Peres' The Adventures of Cowboy and Miniman may not be the endless summer holiday of The Avalanches Since I Left You, nor is it quite the cotton candy napalm of The Go! Team's début but it is all theirs and, best of all, it is a whole barrel-load of fun.

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