Released Date:  Out Now

Released On:     Weird World/ Domino Records


God, this is a brilliant record.  If you have ever been young and retain an appreciation for music that typifies the reckless drive of youth, its pitfalls and pinnacles and the rose-tinted memories our formative years inspire then there is no way- absolutely no fucking way-you cannot fail to find something to love on Dye It Blonde. 

Album opener Weekend has a riff straight out of the Marc Bolan book of the bombastic, and from there it’s verses of ‘nah-nah-nah-nah- and choruses of ‘too-ooh-ohh-ohh.’  Lead singer Cullen Omori has the kind of androgynous voice that would make David Bowie proud and maybe demand some sort of acknowledgement for his influence.

Imagine Pt.3 is not far from perfect; a melange of glam guitar licks and jaunty piano lines that are perfectly balanced with the ever-present harmonies and echoed vocals on such sentimental reflections as: ‘ the look in your eyes/makes me wanna die/you’re not the girl I used to know.’  If you think that line means it’s anything other than a song to grab loved ones too, give them a shake and remind that once in a while we can aspire to the life believed in as teenagers, then you would be  sincerely wrong and your prescription to rectify this is to listen to this very song on this very link.

All Die Young then picks up the baton of the glorious and the foolhardy, with its contender for couplet of the year in “all die young/the world is lovely when you are young.”  What sets this song so far apart, too, is that though it is pop song through and through-a pop song of the loftiest order- it takes two and a half minutes to get to the chorus.  “Don’t bore us, get to the chorus” may be the rallying cry of some and there are times (especially under a wet sky in a field surrounded by idiots in clothes their Uncles gave to a charity shop in 1983) I’m inclined to agree but here the joy is in the suspension of the singalong.  It’s tempting to say the first two and a half minutes are the most boring  on the album with their looping guitars and lilting Mercury Rev tempo, but with the crash and bash of the chorus you realise this is a tune that has been carefully constructed with the knowledge it’s got a musical monkey up its sleeve that could bring Nick Clegg to his knees, give a gleeful air-punch and reminisce about the days when life seemed a bit less complicated.

There’s something about the delivery of this album, of how it merges its obvious 70s influences with a scuzzy aesthetic that is all 2011 (by way of the early 90s), that makes it seem so very right for now.  It’s unashamed in its desire to make hearts flutter and toss arms aloft, and though it is made by three lads from Chicago , there is something decidedly British-Bowie, Bolan, Mercury- in its pomp and happy circumstance.  It’s an album for nights out, nights in and mornings in after nights out and if you don’t believe me, just consider the repeated refrain of End Of The Night:

“Everyone wants to be a star on a Saturday night/Come with me baby and your eyes will shine the sunlight.”




9/10
 

Posted In Album Reviews, May 09 2011. Words - David