Insert Shortland Street reference here…
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[4.69]
Mallory O’Donnell: Oh look, they have Brooklyn in New Zealand too. Great.
[2]
Tom Ewing: In a grand Sound of… tradition, the list is padded out by Antipodean no-hoper synthpop makeweights singing about dreams. And, much like Empire of the Sun, I rather enjoyed this. In fact, I can still remember how “Walking On A Dream” goes a whole three years after — will I be able to say the same of the Naked & Famous? (Sneak preview answer: No.)
[6]
Katherine St Asaph: Anthemic for about two minutes until it uses up all its good tricks (ditching your spiky synth hook to showcase iffier vocals is not a good trick). But a two-minute anthem’s worth something.
[7]
Jer Fairall: Love those odd twinkling little synth noises that pitter-patter throughout, which is all the more reason to resent just how sonically overbearing and compressed the whole thing sounds. Still, the biggest tease here is the boy’s dreamy vocal part that makes an all too brief appearance at the two-minute mark, the rest of the song given over to a shrieky female lead who seems to be aiming in the direction of MGMT when this lot would be better off trying to be a new Sugarcubes.
[5]
Jonathan Bradley: The band mimics MGMT well enough, suggesting “Kids” was played at student parties in the band’s native New Zealand as often as it has been across the Tasman in Australia. The distinguishing feature is Alisa Xayalith, who shouts triumphantly about nothing at all in much the same way Régine Chassagne of Arcade Fire hollers about The Kids; I’ve decided I favor Chassagne’s preference for content at the risk of foolishness over Xayalith’s penchant for respectable vacancy, though I could understand why some might disagree. I’m pretty poor at predicting my response to hearing material like this in social circumstances; I ended up appreciating “Kids” after having it incessantly hammered into my brain while out with friends, but “I Gotta Feeling” just got more irritating each time I heard it. I won’t listen to “Punching in a Dream” again unless I’m forced to, but there’s a fifty per cent chance I won’t mind.
[5]
Zach Lyon: I could’ve sworn Passion Pit was the sound of 2008.
[4]
Kat Stevens: This is better than the load of old arse MGMT released last year, but it still needs to be twice as fast before it will be Any Good At All. If they can’t keep up then they can get a bloody drum machine.
[4]
Doug Robertson: Scratchy, sulky girl vocals, bleepy bits, just enough gloss to show love and effort has gone into the track, but not too much so as to wipe out any actual personality or humanity from the track; this is the sort of track I’m a sucker for, regardless of the fact that it contains all the originality of a photocopied photocopier manual. It needs more hooks, and they need to spend less time listening to their CD collection, but if this is a marker point on the way, I can’t wait to see the final destination.
[7]
Frank Kogan: A voice that’s half harpy and half little girl, could be usefully eerie for about ten seconds of a movie, but that doesn’t make it good singing. It’s surrounded by nicely spacious dance-oriented rock that held promise but went facile and gooey too fast.
[2]
Alfred Soto: Punching in a dream-pop song more like. The register shifts work better than the arena-ready production though.
[4]
Josh Langhoff: There’s an appealing looseness about the whole thing — the singers “woo-OOO-oo!” along with the synth lines, Alisa Xayalith’s high notes sound unhinged, and every time you turn around there’s some new sound popping up. MVP is drummer Jesse Wood, who punches up some choice electronic effects while throwing a whole bunch of unexpected ratatats and cymbal crashes into his swingin’ disco beat. His fills at the end make me smile every time. As does this shirtless man drumming along to the song.
[9]
Martin Skidmore: I guess with the strongish female vocal and the electronica blended into their indie rock, this is kind of like the Yeah Yeah Yeahs. Occasionally the blend of styles start to suggest they might capture that kind of energy, but then it fades away again, thumping along to no very clear purpose. There’s nothing to the song, and I was soon bored.
[2]
Alex Macpherson: I keep confusing these people with Taylor Momsen’s band, The Pretty Reckless. I’m sure their own name is some sort of ironic comment on the celebrity-industrial complex that they nonetheless wouldn’t mind joining, but honestly I’d far rather go back to Momsen (enjoyable in a placeholder Ashlee Simpson kind of way) or anticipate Kim Kardashian (produced by The-Dream, you guys!) than explore any further this shrill, derivative (MGMT x The Sounds) indie disco filler that I feel like I’ve heard a thousand times before.
[4]