Labels: Snowstorm
Review by: Andy Malcolm
Ah. Spaced out indie rock. It’s a fine genre, replete with many
enjoyable bands, and here is Hookers Green No. 1 bringing to
the plate their own attempt at spaced out indie rock, spreading
3 songs over 18 minutes. And they do a decent job of it, mixing
up a whole shedload of influences (most of them hinted at in a
less than subtle accompanying note) to create a pretty unique
sound. Opening track, “Love Ballad for the Cold Robot”, relies on electronics
and funny noises, sounding like a cross between those weird
inteludes on the Christie Front Drive lp and Bright Eyes (it’s
the wavery vocals that do it) to create something not too
disimilar from the recent Manitoba LP (and that was one of the
best lp’s I have heard so far this year). I think this was my
favourite song on this CD, yep.
Seconds away, “There is an Equillibrium” which is nice and
chilled out indie with a big ole jazz influence. The chilled
out intro is sublime, then they hurtle into a brassy track with
spazzy drums and some suitably nuts trumpet instrumentation
that dominates proceedings. Even the fucked up vocals sound like
a tuba. Peculiar. It’s quite erratic, but maintains an
enjoyable melody throughout. Good mix up of the ugly and the
fun. Gotta love the moment where it all drops out and they have
some reveberating drums and other 70’s sounding instrumentation
take to the fore. These dudes should cover the Taking of Pelham
1,2,3 theme tune, that’d be awesome!
We end on “A Fantastic Voyage” (great film!) which is again a
peculiar effort that starts out all kind of weird before
cruising into a Joan of Arc style fuckery uppery. “all my
friends speak in binary and we all speak in lethargy”.
Smart! I think that’s what he says anyway! Bleeps, blips, noises, unpredictable.
What can I say? This is bizarro, and I like it more today than
I did yesterday. That about sums things up. Good to hear some
creativity, yo.