Personnel
* Greg Alsop - Drums, Percussion
* Josh Hook - Guitar, Percussion
* Dave Monks - Vocals, Bass
* Graham Wright - Keyboards, Vocals
Following on one of the most well received 16 minutes of music in
recent history (2006's 'A Lesson In Crime' EP), Newmarket Ontario's
Tokyo Police Club have just released their debut album, 'Elephant
Shell', on Saddle Creek in North America and Memphis Industries in
the UK.
'Elephant Shell' lands roughly a year and half after 'A Lesson In
Crime' (with last year's 'Smith' EP and 'Your English Is Good' digisingle
and a ton of touring also bridging the gap) and barely four years
from the band's 2005 formation. Not bad for four friends who learned
to play during senior year in high school, later naming themselves
for a nonsensical lyric from the song that would become track one
on their first EP, which would in turn sell over 30,000 copies (probably
about 29,000 more than they expected) and garner accolades from Entertainment
Weekly ("We can hardly wait for the full length), Rolling Stone
("If only all young guitar bands were smart enough to rock out
this fast, banging out seven first-rate mod-punk party starters in
barely more than sixteen minutes"), Interview, Blender, Nylon
and The New York Times among others.
If bassist/vocalist David Monks once described the band's music as
"wide-eyed post-punk with a tendency to get over excited-so much
so that someone has to come and tell it to settle down," 'Elephant
Shell' is the sound of four early-20-somethings now seasoned through
hundreds of shows from tiny clubs to the festival throngs at Coachella
and Glastonbury, maturing a bit and learning to temper and modulate
their own more varied musical moods. Or maybe Canada's socialized
health care means easier access to generic Ritalin and Adderall?
Either way, 'Elephant Shell' delivers on every bit of promise in
Tokyo Police Club's rapid-fire barrage of material to date. The opening
one-two of 'Centennial' and 'In A Cave' barely evaporates before 'Graves'
and 'Juno' pack innumerable hooks and "what-does-that-remind-me-of"
glimmers into meager 2-minute-and-change frameworks, while 'Tessellate'
and 'Sixties Remake' encapsulate everything great about the manic
TPC live experience: soaring guitar signatures and keyboard figures,
driving backbeats and irresistible singalongs abound. Elsewhere, 'The
Harrowing Adventures Of...' and the down tempo standout 'Listen To
The Math' find our young protagonists ably adapting their energy into
more subdued structures before the rousing coda of 'The Baskervilles'
brings the record to an all-too-early halt.
Unsurprisingly, Tokyo Police Club is already back on the road at
press time and will continue to be through the release of 'Elephant
Shell'.
'Elephant Shell' is out now.
