CSS - ‘Donkey’ (album review)
I tried to buy a pen off the conductor at the train station because I had lost mine whilst running to catch my train. Thankfully he was nice enough to give me the pen which enabled me to write the following review. I do not know whether the conductor was into CSS but I can only imagine not.
There has been a fair amount of excitement regarding ‘Donkey’, the follow up to Cansei de Ser Sexy’s self titled debut which was first released in their native Brazil and then internationally through the legendary Sub Pop label.
Their first record contained the dance floor favorite “Lets Make Love and Listen to Death From Above”, almost a manifesto for CSS’s brand of guitar driven electro sleaze.
‘Donkey’ keeps the ball rolling, shifting between scrappy Indie and clinical Electro Pop. From the first track it is apparent that these songs work both on and off the dance floor and CSS seem to steer clear of the affliction that bands like Simian and to some extent Hot Chip have suffered from, namely making good songs yet requiring a reworking by some third party in order to make great songs. In contrast ‘Donkey’ is a finished product, the hard synth is there and so are the bouncing bass lines, sparse guitar riffs and straight forward vocals. “I’m gonna jump up on the table and dance my ass off till I die”, “Rat, Is Dead”.
It is hardly Dylan Thomas, but then it has to be viewed in the context of the song. Here the words become more Pop Art statements than decisive social commentary and while they sometimes verge on almost playground simplicity things are always kept to the point and the flow is never broken .CSS have essentially produced a record of songs that you can dance to whilst being a bit more interesting than the standard Indie chart fodder. The Dance influence seems sincere, this is undoubtedly what CSS are about, not just some post production afterthought because the ‘eighties’ and Rave are cool right now (on a side note I seriously believe it will only be a matter of time until ‘Nu-Rave’ Margaret Thatcher T shirts start turning up in high street stores). From the Curesque “Beautiful Song”, “How I Became Paranoid” being reminiscent of New Order and “Move” which features textured guitar melodies similar to that of The Smiths there is an evident celebration of what went down twenty years ago.
While the record opens with the bold and the funky “Jager Yoga” and is followed by the straight forward single “Rat is Dead (Rage)” the album’s other single, “Left Behind”, is the straight out winner. Noisy electro buzzing mingles with relentless beats, a story about a jet setting booze hound whose life on the road is marred only by lost love culminating in soaring chorus, it is a sure fire winner.
Donkey is a mix of dance floor beats and hairspray/leg warmer Pop. Quite simply, if the movie ‘Tron’ had featured a night club scene I can only imagine it would have sounded something like CSS’s latest offering.
By Dann Gaymer
Release Date: 21/7/08
Label: Sub Pop
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