 I guess Luke Haines, former lead singer of middling nineties British indie band The Auteurs came closest to summing up the cultural differences we have to our American cousins. Writing in his relentlessly bitchy (and highly recommended) autobiography "Bad Vibes: Brit Pop And My Part In It's Downfall," the embittered near-miss uses the experience of the band's first US tour to reason on the occasional lack of trans-Atlantic empathy. Bemused by amongst other things a recalcitrant tour manager, he theorises that "The old adage about Britain and America being two countries divided by a common language is not strictly true...The real great cultural divide is the American's love of Cheap Trick."
A three piece from Chicago, The Rikters have been listening to a lot of Cheap Trick. Drowning in it. Like our own Fratellis appeared to have gorged themselves on T-Rex, The Damned and Slade, on the evidence of their debut album, Doug, Owen and Riley, or maybe their older brothers, had Rick Neilsen and his fellow sons of Illinois on repeat all through the 80's.
I dread to think what Haines would've made of this, but suffice to say there's no "I Want You To Want Me" here. Hopes are briefly raised with "Give Me Tonight," but the rest is so homogeneous it's hard to know (or care) when one mid-tempo plodder finishes and another one begins. In short, it's a little bit drive time, a little bit pub rock, a little bit power pop, and it's dull, dull, fucking dull.
A few months ago I reviewed Keeps You Up When Your Down by The Perms, a Canadian trio whose M.O. matches The Rikters almost identically. I didn't like that either. But what I was trying to communicate in my 300-word dissing wasn't ridicule for the sake of it - ok, maybe just a little - but an attempt to tell them in my own way that there's an order to pop music which can't be perverted. It's the same reason why their YouTube footage shows them playing to a festival crowd of six. Fame and rock and roll stardom are not based necessarily on talent, we all know that. At the heart of celebrity kingdom is the mystery of human chemistry, and no fucker's ever going to have the know-how to understand that, no matter what your spam filters tell you. Sometimes bands we love flounder for years in ignorance of this vicious status quo and we get sad about it, (for me the Go Betweens, and as of now Future of The Left) but circumventing the logic is harder than cheating death. Still thousands of acts all over the world carry on in blissful ignorance, waiting for a number which will never be called. I give you then The Rikters, at a mall near you. Probably until they get old.
Last edited by altsounds : November 1, 2009 at 02:38 AM.
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| | | | Overall Rating | | 3 | | Vocals / Lyrics | | 3 | | Musicianship | | 4 | | Production | | 4 | | Creativity | | 2 | | Lastability | | 3 | | Reviewers Tilt | | 3 |
31% | |
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