Elephant Shell - Tokyo Police Club

Author's product rating:   

Originality	Groundbreaking
Lyrics	Thought-provoking
Quality and consistency of tracks	Mixed
How does it compare to the artist's other releases	Good
Value for Money	Excellent

Advantages:	Genre - breaking, upbeat, clever lyrics
Disadvantages:	Lack of variety

Recommend to potential buyers:

yes

Full review

The Band
I first heard the incredibly catchy noisemaking of Tokyo Police Club on American digital radio, so catchy were the quirky beats and lyrics in fact that after listening to one or two more songs I was compelled to go ahead and buy the debut album. I'm glad to say that the two CD version including bonus features is easy to get hold of in the UK through a London based distributor. I'm also glad to say that the bonus CD is well worth paying the extra negligible amount for, with remixes of the band's work by established artists/producers such as Dntel (worth checking out in himself and as part of postal service) and Flowers Forever. This backing not only gives a little entertainment but is a great heads up from the industry; this band is on the way folks!

Elphant Shell
As for the actual album; quirky, catchy and seductively layered Canadian indie rock is the order of the day. So what exactly is the Canadian indie scene like? Unfortunately I have little experience of it I live in North West England, judging by this example though it's well worth a look. The crew (A singer/bassist, a keyboardist, a guitarist and a drummer) originate from Toronto and reassuringly seem to have carved an audience out of the locals there using little but good old fashioned word of mouth and small but clever labels. Anyone who can get as far as this lot have in this way deserve a little look surely? Anyone who thinks so wont be let down. Upon hearing the oddly relaxing layered rock riffs I had a familiar feeling that this band, currently on their first full album after two EPs ('A lesson in crime' and 'Smith LP'), are headed for big things and rightly so.

Sound wise the percussion basis of the songs is straight out of punk; furious and sharp, combined the quirky rock riffs on guitar this moves the band into the vaguely generic post-punk category. But it's easy to make your mind up too quickly and clever use of layering and symphonic loops throughout the album has an electro vibe about it that breaks away from regular genres into new ground, this of course is important for any decent band who want to stand out. The song 'Tessellate' demonstrates all of these features brilliantly and is definitely one of the album's highlights.

Originality then is one of the band's strengths but having found an audio-orgy of a new sound the band also demonstrate one of their weaknesses, there is very little variety in the album. This isn't a massive problem as the thing that 'Tokyo Police Club' are sticking rigidly to is, as I have already said, brilliant. But even caviar and champagne get boring eventually if we live on nothing else. Fortunately the lyrics are abstract, well thought out and vocalised by the incredibly interesting voice of Dave Monks which never seems to get old or irritating. If you don't believe me listen to "Nursery, Academy", abstract but undoubtedly remarkable.

So we've got genre-breaking originality, catchy tunes and incredibly clever lyrics, sound good? For what it's worth I'll say that on first hearing of the album I got a familiar hopeful tingle telling me that these particular musical cads could well be going somewhere. The samey-ness is a bit of a problem, indeed one of the only ones that I can think of, if you hear a song and don't like it, don't buy the album hoping for some diversity. What you see is what you get. Despite this if you are at all into the kind of music that I have just described invest, and the bonus CD is well worth the small extra layout.