Indeed, the quartet-who formed in 1997 in Versailles, France-had much less kinship with any grunge, punk or garage contemporaries than with vanguard ‘70s pop acts like Electric Light Orchestra and 10cc. Now, hopefully good looking indie girls will want to dance with me to some Phoenix.Living up to their mythic name, Phoenix emerged as a bright, shiny beacon of guitar-pop pleasure amid an otherwise serious-minded era for alternative rock.
Sure, I could mention some sort of concept about pianists Liszt and Mozart, but who cares? It’s summer, and Phoenix make pretty good summer music.
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While the latter half may become tedious, the first half is chock full of likeable tunes. In this sense, Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix hits a home-run, or a ground roll double. Their sound is defined and is intended to simply make catchy music.
Stripping all that away though, and Phoenix have still managed to create a solid record. 1" and Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix Might have been something even greater then it is. Even closer “Armistice”, a chance to end the album a big, or mellow note, feels as if it’s just more of the same, minus the nifty use of harpsichord, of course.Ī little more variety, like the slow burn of “Love Like a Sunset Pt. There’s nothing particularly wrong with “Girlfriend”, but the mildly whiny vocals, stuttering bass and fluttering drumbeat do nothing to distinguish it from the rest of the album. In fact, a lot of the songs on the album have a similar feel to them and this catches up to you towards the end of the album. “Big Sun” seems like a lesser version of “Rome” and seeing as it’s placed immediately after it, this creates a bit of tediousness. While the pulsating beat of “Rome” makes it a contender for song of the album (and one of my favourites from this year to be totally honest) it doesn’t necessarily save some of the other tunes. Unfortunately, this sense of experimentation would have felt welcome towards the end of the album.Īlmost inevitably, the main problem with this album is that it starts to wear out its welcome towards end. It’s a unique song in context from the rest of the record, setting it out as a highlight. 1 and 2" which steadily builds until a strumming ballad slows the song to an end. Never is this more evident then on the five-and-a-half minute krautrock intro that makes up the epic centerpiece “Love Like a Sunset Pt. Still, the driving force behind much of the music is the keyboards, drums and bass. Similarly, album opener “Lisztomania” hops along with a bouncy guitar line. What separates Phoenix is the greater use of organic instruments, like the acoustic guitar that propels the verses into an instantly memorable chorus on “Fences”.
With the buzzing synths and steady drumbeats, “1901" would fit well alongside “Electric Feel”. Immediate comparisons to other groups like MGMT seem all too likely.
While never blazing any trails or attempting to blow your mind, Phoenix craft a number of catchy tunes and a couple of hum-dingers for good measure. The age old adage of trusting your gut feeling remains firmly intact as this is a pretty great album. With some hesitance I acquired the album and gave it a few spins. There was a certain vibrance to the music, that seemed to hint at something better then my first impression surmised. Still, something nagged at me as I attempted to dismiss the album. Hipster indie garbage that was tailor-made for the blogging hype train, was my first impression. One look at the album cover and a quick few listens of a few sample tracks and I was skeptical. So after stumbling across this album I became oddly intrigued. These poppy indie-rockers had hovered in and out of my radar for the past couple of years but I never took full notice of the band. There was a certain ambivalence for me as I went to pick up Phoenix’s newest album, Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix.