Tokyo Police Club - 'Elephant Shell' (Memphis Industries) Released 05/05/08

Let’s not beat about the bush here, Tokyo Police Club certainly don’t. This album (all eleven tracks of it) is short, at just over twenty eight minutes. That averages out at roughly 2:33 per track, which is barely enough time to catch your breath on this dash through Tokyo Police Club’s full length follow up to the oh-so-short and awfully sweet ‘A Lesson In Crime EP’. Since that EP was released back in 2006, a storm of hype and anticipation surrounded the Canadian quartet and the prospect of a forthcoming LP; the wait has been long and the produce almost, nearly almost, worth waiting for.

‘Elephant Shell’ is a surprisingly polished effort for a debut LP. The production is spotless with a trebly, crunchy, bass guitar prominent throughout, snappy drums, and a punchily resonant guitar tone creating an endearing musical jigsaw which is completed by Monks’ crystal clear Canadian nasal proclamations. Throw in a few group handclaps and backing chants and you’re onto a winner. Strolling through with perky pop-punk perfection, ‘Elephant Shell’ showcases both the upbeat in singles ‘Tessellate’ and ‘Your English Is Good’ (the longest and strongest track), with just a smattering of the more sombre in ‘The Harrowing Adventures Of…’ melancholic strings and plenty of the back-in-fashion glockenspiel included.

Chock full of tracks which gratify and many sure-fire indie-club hits, it is a debut which is more a solid and sound continuation of their earlier releases rather than anything that is mould-breaking on genre-spawning, though some of ‘Elephant Shell’ is notably more experimental with instrumentation and a more heavily layered texture. Sure, it’s straight up conventional indie-pop, and there are certainly no surprise elements on show here other than the odd musical embellishment, but when it’s the type of sparkling indie-pop that offered up on ‘Elephant Shell’ it’s hard to be too critical, even if a knockout punch or killer blow is regrettably absent.