Japandroids - Post-Nothing [Album]

Polyvinyl

September 14, 2009, 06:20 PM

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Will somebody please, for the love of God, take those fucking sticks out of that Prowse blokes hands. I swear, this drummer reminds me of Bart Simpson marching up and down outside a pregnant Marge Simpson's room screaming, "I am so great! I am so great!" whilst banging a pan on his head. All right it's actually a cymbal but it makes exactly the same sound as it did the other nine billion times you've hit the thing. The drumming was so monotonous that I reckon I could actually hear him smack them in-between the songs.

Brian King is on guitar, and the only other member of Japandroids (an amalgamation of two other equally bad names creating one super-terrible one - go figure), he tries to be as insistent with his distorted power chording but loses out on a win by actually making a pretty fun sound most of the time.

Eurgh. These two Canadians have been getting sucked off all over the shop for a while now and I can see why. They are catchy and straight forward and if you're a bit dim you might think the constant repetition of one lyric over and over gives it some kind of deep meaning. It doesn't. On the first track they tell us, "The boys are leaving town," then go on to pose the question in a near teenage sob of desperation, "Will they ever find their way home?" Fucking hell chaps, if it's bothering you that much I'd suggest not leaving in the first place.

Production wise it's hard to tell if they've done a good job or not because although barking into a dustbin might be the sound they were aiming for, at the same time it might not be.

Am I being too harsh? I mean if you haven't heard At The Drive-In or No Age then you might be blown away and Japandroids do make a lot of energetic noise for just a couple of blokes singing together somewhere in a small Vancouver studio. But no, I'm not and here's why: These two have listened to the afforestation bands and what Japandroids have done is try to distil all the best bits and force them into a neat little popular rock package. It's like taking a really good film and making your own version of it as a trailer. Okay, you might get to see some cracking bits but where's the substance? Where's the plot? Where are the ideas?

This is of course going to go down a storm in junior high but it really is kids stuff. Seems like all you need to blow the wind up the skirts of some taste makers these days is a copy of "Nouns" and a shit load of effects pedals.

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