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Thunderbirds Are Now! - Justamustache


When I first heard a couple of songs from TAN!'s debut album Doctor, Lawyer, Indian Chief I thought they were really wacky but nothing I'd want to listen to over and over again. Then, sometime this past January or Februray, i stumbled across mp3s for "198090 (Aquatic Cupid's)," "Eat This City," and "From: Skulls," all from TAN!'s upcoming Frenchkiss release Justamustache. I was instantly enraptured by the energy and sound and just everything, and it certainly helped my opinion of the wacky bunch knowing that they were now on Frenchkiss, the label founded and operated by Syd from Les Savy Fav. about a month or so later, the controversial hipster music magazine Pitchfork posted a review of "198090 (Aquatic Cupid's)," citing the song as a lesson to The Unicorns, that sometimes its best to learn how to play your instruments before you break all the rules of pop song structure. the review amused me, even if i found it only half true (i agreed with the sentiment, but not the light it shone on either band).
Nonetheless, "198090 (Aquatic Cupid's)" became one of my favorite songs of 2005, with its spastic guitars and climbing keyboard bleeps and bloops and conspiracy planning lyrics like "The first order to attend to is to get rid of who we outsmarted, but to do this we’ll have to poison all their brothers and their sisters" and "They talk slow, repeating words that we already know. We talk fast, steal from the future and not from the past"
Comparatively, "From: Skulls" is a terribly simple guitar rocker, but who the hell cares? Its still got all the elements that make the band so much fun.
After finally loving the hell out of this album last spring, I got around to picking up Doctor, Lawyer, Indian Chief over the summer and its damn excellent as well. More goofing around on that one, but Justamustache is where the guys of TAN! begin to make some seriously good alternative rock songs.

198090 (Aquatic Cupid's) MP3
From: Skulls MP3

BONUS MUSIC VIDEO:
Eat This City MOV