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With a surprisingly successful EP and album under their belts already, Tokyo Police Club return with their second full-length album ‘Champ’.
Seemingly destined to never fully crossover into the mainstream, their initial success was driven primarily by bloggers, forums, and online communities. Yes, the hype-machine grunted to life, heralding them as a bright, exciting new band in the post- Strokes indie landscape. Coming in at little over 15mins, their debut release ‘A Lesson in Crime’ did just enough to satiate the hype-mongers - short enough to disguise the lack of ideas on offer and hyper-active enough to excite. Relentless touring ensued but they never quite broke through to a greater audience.
Two years later TPC returned with ‘Elephant Shell’, which was similar on the whole though slightly more polished and leaning a little more toward traditional pop sensibilities. To those preferring the frantic, unrelenting pace of their EP it was a slight disappointment, but others argued it was merely the band finding their sound, developing and showing promise.
So here we are, ‘Champ’, and, well… it’s none-too-dissimilar from ‘Elephant Shell’. It’s a little less textured, slightly sparser in terms of instrumentation and production, but the same song formulas employed on that EP are very much present here. Eleven stop, start, guitar-driven tracks, mainly mid-tempo, with sporadic electronic undercurrents. Easing off on the layers has certainly helped emphasise the angular rhythms, giving a much greater rigidity to their sound - an effect that might see fans drifting from the mosh-pit to the dance-floor.
Lead single ‘Wait Up’ is pure indie-pop fodder –Plenty of guitars? Check. Shout-along chorus? Check. Snappy backing vocals? Check. Lyrical content vague enough that anyone can force an emotional connection? Check. It’s all there, and this time they’ve even managed to hit radio playlists - question is, is this the album to propel TPC to bigger things? Possibly not.
Unfortunately, ‘Champ’ makes for a disappointing listen on the whole. Even at their best you can’t help but feel it’s average and there are other bands doing a better job in a truly saturated genre - but that’s not to say it’s completely vapid. Opener ‘Favourite Food’ starts the album very promisingly moving swiftly from synth drones, to emotionally-drained acoustic reflections, to their trademark high-energy rock – impressively all in under four minutes. And ‘Bambi’ is another strong tune - innovative syncopations and a Cure-esque feel, it features an excellent glitchy, electro intro that almost overshadows the rest of the track.
Alas, for every enjoyable song there seems to be one or two that fail to ignite. ‘Favourite Colour’ is beyond average, ‘Big Difference’ also plain, and ‘End of a Spark’ manages to feel repetitive and drawn out even though it clocks in at just over 3mins 30s. Monks’ lyrics may also be divisive - his idiosyncratic observations often sound contrived, and are unlikely to be to everyone’s taste.
So for Tokyo Police Club’s fans it’s the same old, same old. To the vast-majority it’s a decidedly average indie-pop album - drums, bass, guitars, stop, start, end, repeat.
