Guess which decade of pop we’re looting today, kids? Alright, so the prize cupboard’s bare, there is no reward – but we had high hopes for this particular project. Though they’ve been kicking around over the pond for a few years now, we first became aware of Austin, Texas 6-piece Sound Team with their excellent ‘Work EP’ when it was given a UK release earlier this year. There was a synthetic mould holding the 4 tracks in place, but within the casing there was a humming sense of magpie-eclecticism, exhibiting the pert enthusiasm of say Pavement, Trail Of Dead’s rough melodic bent, Spoon’s contradictory dissonance, the Postal Service’s mechanics and Sonic Youth’s barely concealed desire for crescendo. The possibility of what they had on offer was exciting. We’re talking about holding things on a simmering heat, nothing too overt.
Which makes it a slight disappointment then when the complete deal comes along and feels comparatively stunted and slightly overcooked. Its relative proximity to The Killers’ 80’s indie-synth merry-go-round, albeit on the dark side of the fair (broken glass, flickering strip lighting), is also a let down given the scope of opportunity already showcased on the EP. The cynic in us might have something to say about that as well. But putting aside previous expectation and working solely from within the boundaries they’ve set themselves for these 11 tracks, they don’t do a bad job at all.
The single ‘Born To Please’ begins skimming along like it’s trying to break the skin of Editors’ dour-pop, but quickly falls into line behind some bright Duran Duran paced Killers-style neon-action, which turns out to be quite some fun – cool fun anyway, the sort where you don’t have to smile all that much. And ‘Your Eyes Are Liars’ is straight in there on the money, as is ‘Back In Town’, albeit with a precisely tweaked Death Cab For Cutie delivery. The title track of the album and ‘You’ve Never Lived A Day’ are more adventurously abstract, crawling through synthesiser and broken glass like a run down, stretch-warped tape of Talk Talk and the Human League. That’s more like it. Kind of like a less misguided version of the Dandy Warhol’s ‘Welcome To The Monkeyhouse’, but without the singles.