Sunday 6 April 2008

Grand National - Animal Sounds

http://www.clickmusic.com/articles/7015.html

It opens like 'My Sharona' meets The B52s, with a not quite raucous synth, octave harmonies, and beat-heavy oomph. 'Animal Sounds' has interesting artwork, with a photo of various limbs attached to a mantelpiece in a backdrop of semi-normality. Aside from that, this is certainly well-produced stuff – it's kept the muddiness of the electro and balanced it out rather well with minimally and slowly building textures. It's brooding and charming, well crafted and polite, but as the expected calibre's been set so high by Maps et al, it falls flat at its lack of personality. The Fear Of Theydon remix pads and puffs it out a bit more with denser beats, and a choppy staccato part gives it a bit more edginess but all the same, it's still too derivative of the Depeche Mode school of electro-pop. Nevertheless, it's a rather stylish and respectable attempt, so don't dismiss it just yet as there may well be more where this comes from.

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