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Art Brut - Bang Bang Rock & Roll


You want to not love this band. It seems so simple that it breaks the boundaries of pretention, except they don't seem to be all that pretentious, in fact, they seem rather aloof to the whole thing.
Art Brut sound exactly like what they are, a straight-up rock and roll band from the United Kingdom. We've got a couple of guitars playing incredibly simple rythm chords back and forth, a rather standard bass and some general rock drums, along with sing-speak vocals. Overall, it sounds like a bunch of disaffected kids who just learned basic pop song structure just playing with no real intent other than hanging out.
But here's the thing: they're fucking brilliant.
The hit single "Emily Kane," a ballad about the singer's high school girlfriend, is a perfect example of how hopelessly catchy their deceptively simple music can be, and the lyrics demonstrate both how shockingly honest ("There’s so much about you I miss, every time I see a couple kiss.") and humorously juvenile ("if memory serves we’re still on a break.").
And then there's "Bad Weekend," with possibly the most "lead" guitar on the whole album (not counting the occasional solo), where the lyrics would have you believe that the band is sick of their decades of fame, despite the fact that this is their debut album ("Haven’t read the NME in so long, don’t know what genre we belong. Popular culture, no longer applies to me")
So yeah, I wanted to write these guys off as a one trick pony after last year's adorable single "Formed A Band," but goddammit, this album just rocks too hard. Long live Art Brut.

Emily Kane MP3
Bad Weekend MP3