We’re a month late on the real heat wave, but never mind…
[Video][Website]
[3.33]
Alfred Soto: Imagine Maroon 5 without the nerd-inflected lust. Imagine a distorted “Tarzan Boy” sample used without wit. Imagine singing “We are soaked up in the heatwave” without being told the statement makes no sense.
[1]
Jonathan Bogart: Jesus Christ, no. Some things are sacred. The hook from “Tarzan Boy” is one of them.
[3]
Michaela Drapes: There’s a picture of Baltimora’s Jimmy McShane in the dictionary next to the definition of Italodisco. The New Cities hitch their flaccid “party” track to one of the most unabashedly joyful queer anthems ever written. The result, cooked up in The Matrix’s sterile pop laboratory, is a unquestionable and unlistenable disaster.
[0]
Katherine St Asaph: Along with the entire continental U.S., I soaked up about seven heatwaves last month. The fan insisted on blowing nothing but hot air, so my skin manufactured nothing but a film of scum and my hair wilted into limp weeds. All the clothes and sheets became disgusting within seconds, but the 100-degree heat all but paralyzed me amid the fabric. This is not a feeling I want to cling to like a magnet to the metal. Have these guys ever even felt heat?
[4]
Anthony Easton: Toronto last month hit almost 50 degrees centigrade with the humidex, and a fuck buddy called. I told him that there was no interest at all in doing anything but sitting inside and not wanting to touch anybody at all. Heat shuts down anything but the desperate desire to remain cool.
[5]
Brad Shoup: How it takes six dudes to record an update of “I’m a Girl Watcher” is beyond my comprehension. The bass synth rumbles like ungodly summer swelter, and the start-stop riff is as charming as the adenoidal vocals. Side note: who writes songs with the word “misbehaving” any more? 50-year-old dominatrixes? Rated higher on the chance that the second verse was salvaged from Serge Gainsbourg’s vault.
[7]
Jer Fairall: Purposely evoking better songs in your own limp, twerpy one is always a deadly move, and this one is off to a bad start a just few seconds in by already making me wish I was hearing “(Love is Like a) Heat Wave” or “Tarzan Boy” instead. A minute and a half on, I’d even settle for Hot Chelle Rae.
[3]
Mallory O’Donnell: Of all the undistinguished company “Tarzan Boy” has ever had to keep, this is very nearly the least distinguished.
[2]
Edward Okulicz: The New Cities:Neon Trees::Neon Trees:The Killers.
[5]