Voted one of the best new bands of 2010, finally the LA five piece release their highly anticipated debut ‘The Golden Age of Knowhere’.
Teasing us with the highly charged ‘NYC Moves to the Sound of LA’ and the catchy ‘Carwars’ last year, finally we get a full album. But does it live up to the hype?, it sort of feels like it’s trying to hard to be an indie floor filler. This isn’t the second coming of ‘The Rapture,’ I’m afraid – as some of us may have hoped. However, the band still pack an impressive punch, with heaps of energy and a charismatic front man aka All the ingredients you’d expect to find – but it just lacks a bit of substance, a bit of commitment, that something extra, that you can get your teeth into.
They carry that certain swagger of The Strokes, but Chad Elliott is no Casablancas and although I said they weren’t the second coming, they still have that Rapture-Esq vibe. They certainly show this with their cowbells clanging in such tracks as ‘Carwars’, but they are a long way from the pioneers of dance-punk rock.
There’s some gems on this album, such as the fast paced ‘Just Because’ a poppy-upbeat-driven number, a nice little summer jam. The ‘Finale’ is THE anthem on the album that best showcases the bands raw punk attitude. With the majority of the album being shouted/screamed at you from Chad Elliott, it finally slows down and chills out a bit with ‘Relics to Ruins’, which shows a more toned down emotional side to the band, something that is painfully lacking across the rest of the album, which seems to adopt more of a “who cares” attitude.
I’m not overly impressed with this debut from all the hype it gathered, however there’s potential and just because they haven’t lived up to their hype just yet, doesn’t mean they wont eventually line up their ducks properly and produce a blinding sophomore effort.
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