Operator Please - Gloves (Brille) 29/03/10

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Operator Please are one of those bands that feel like they’ve been around for ages.  Bursting onto the scene in 2007 with the excitable Song Abut Ping Pong, at the tender age of 16 the Aussie five-some found themselves supporting Bloc Party, Futureheads, and the Arctic Monkeys.  But new album Gloves has set out to carve the band’s own niche in the industry with a new sound and style.

Long gone are the quirky and endearingly homemade like songs.  A new dawn arises in Operator Please’s breaking in a mix-match of indie-pop-disco, thumping with stomping heavy bass and the bite of a wild cougar.  Album  opener Catapult immediately takes hold, leading likeYeah Yeah Yeahs on a leash, whisked together into an Alphabeat froth.  Similarly Just Kiss kicks with a ferocious attitude, branding a sizzling hot pop Hadouken ‘grindie’ style upon it’s synthy hide.  Whilst first release from their debut Logic and Losing Patience, sound like Britney Spears on a daytrip in the land of Ladyhawke.

What made Operator Please so interesting and individual before was their take on indie pop, thrown together with quick beats and shreiky vocals.  Gloves seems to have lost this sweet uniqueness. The band’s disco direction is by no means detrimental to their potential success, but the pleasure of listening to something different has been sapped by through a straw of familiar chords and synthesizers.  New single Back And Forth is a perfect example.  It plods along like a postman posting his last letter of the day, whistling and skipping in delight; so while you’re happy to hear it, it won’t change your life.  And that’s the issue - at times it’s unavoidably weak pop.  Jealous is instantly forgettable, washing over in such an ineffectual way that you’ll immediately forget you’ve just listened to a song.

All this being said the Queenslands bunch are extremely likeable.  Lead singer Amandah Wilkinson moulds the music together with stylish ease, lending her fighting vocals to great bass and snappy lyrics.  Their electro edge leads them away from top 40 mediocrity, repeatedly smacking on indie’s door with a dirty sack of teen angst and aggression; and Gloves is definitely a doc martin in the door.