Tokyo Police Club - Elephant Shell Review
Posted by James Palm on 04.28.2008
One of the most anticipated indie releases of the year has arrived. The debut LP from the Canadian prodigies faces the challenge of living up to their excellent 2006 EP. With expectations high, perhaps TPC were doomed from the start.
If there is one phrase new bands must cringe at seeing in their own press releases, it must be “long-awaited”. The music industry can be cutthroat sometimes, and expectations become daunting. Ontario’s Tokyo Police Club, following the trend of early Canadian high-achievers such as Wolf Parade and Arcade Fire, were widely praised for their 2006 EP A Lesson In Crime, an eccentric collection of their previously released material. The hype machine put the band through the grinder, leading to honours rare for bands without an LP, such as playing many famous music festivals around the world, including Glastonbury and Coachella. A lot was asked of Tokyo Police Club, perhaps too much for a band so raw.
It is the distinctly synthetic feel to Elephant Shell that immediately distances itself from A Lesson.... Josh Hooks on guitar is pushed all the way to the back, overpowered by the electronica. His captivating fret-work is what gave some TPC’s songs a feeling of significance. As a result, much of Elephant Shell resembles the flood of dance-punk bands already hocking their wares to a saturated market. “In A Cave” and first single “Your English Is Good” are quite unlike their counterparts on A Lesson..., utilising production techniques more becoming of the British indie scene than that of Canada.
Gone are the raw emotions that gave previous hits such as “Citizens of Tomorrow” and “Cheer It On” a genuine excitability. To open A Lesson..., David Monks hollered into his microphone “Operator!/Get me the president of the world/We have an emergency!”. It was a unique opening for a band of it’s age and peer group. However, to kick off Elephant Shell, Monks croons “This is skin/You can wrap all of your/Arms and legs in an/Address that you know/An envelope unfolds”, gliding his way over an unprovocative synth line, rejected even by Bloc Party. The discordant opening to the album sets an overproduced tone that lasts the majority of the album.
TPC’s earlier songs showed appreciation for the indie kings of both halves of the last decade, the first half starting after the release of Is This It? from the Strokes and the second after Silent Alarm from Bloc Party. On this album, TPC have decided to quit genre-defying and settle for genre-hopping. Monks’s voice occasionally struggles to match up with the dancefloor rhythms, while he was perfectly suited to the dirty rock club sound of A Lesson.... There are some flashbacks to the vitriolic lyrical content of their EP’s. “Sixties Remake” is a spiteful track that’s both arrogant and excellent; showcasing the potential that caused such anticipation of a TPC full-length.
Simply because their newer material pales in comparison to their older tunes doesn’t mean all hope is lost. “Juno” is a gloomy track that is close to the sound expected of TPC, while the all-out frivolity of “Your English Is Good” helps lead a late-album resurgence. The track’s deliberately catchy chants of “Oh, give us your vote/If you know what’s good for you” display another flicker of arrogance, taking a subtle swipe at the indie bands that litter the pages of NME. Only at the conclusion of Elephant Shell on the sweeping “The Baskervilles” do TPC come anywhere close to the lofty heights set by the unyielding press.
Tokyo Police Club no doubt found themselves overwhelmed by the hype A Lesson... generated, and in today’s musical scene, artists can be driven to make albums based on expectations rather than their own musical senses. Too much of Elephant Shell is uninspiring and unbecoming of a band hailed as future kings of music. The pedestrian structures and overstated productions ruin what was once great about TPC. The album is by no means a disaster; however given what has preceded it, repeat listens are doubtful. It is not mandatory to be immediately gratified after listening to music, but in this case, the feeling was practically demanded.
The Hit - Your English Is Good The Encore - Sixties Remake The Wah? - The Harrowing Adventures Of...
The 411: Whether unwillingly or not, Tokyo Police Club almost entirely abandoned the raw power that made people stand up and notice their early releases. The weight of expectations have no doubt played a part, but Elephant Shell feels far too removed from the apathetic beauty of A Lesson In Crime. Perhaps TPC just got lucky and never had the powers to save the world after all. A second album can settle that debate.
I'm getting ridiculously tired of people coming TPC to their first album, like
some kind of standard that only they can be graded against. Sure, it's
definitely worth merit to look at past releases, but this entire review only
talks about how the LP pales in comparison to the EP, which, while it might be
true(I don't think it is, but you're entitled to your opinion) doesn't really
tell us much about the LP, particularly when it comes to the significance of
the LP versus say...a lot of the crap in the scene right now. I thought it was
a confident debut, an entire album of "A Lesson in Crime"-style
tracks would've been wearisome, and given the mileage they got out of that
album, they had to change it up slightly. I think the album is great, and
definitely sits above quite a few others in the genre. It's not perfect, but if
we judge it by an objective standard and not vs. A Lesson in Crime, I think it
holds up very well.
Posted By: JCullen (Guest) on April 28, 2008 at 03:34 PM
And by coming in the first sentence, I meant comparing.
Posted By: JCullen (Guest) on April 28, 2008 at 06:43 PM
