![]() ![]() They've always enjoyed getting into the studio and experimenting with sound, and the results are usually rewarding. Pompeii is beautiful and bittersweet, counterpointing the WAND's populist (and frankly mystical) optimism with a song of friendship and love frozen in the face of more powerful natural phenomena.Īll the talk that the Flaming Lips moved in new musical directions for this album is par for the discussion concerning any new Lips album. The WAND would have made a great opening track, as it most clearly states the war with the mystics case that the album as a whole only sporadically makes. The most notable exception to this comes near the end with two of the albums best tracks, The WAND followed by Pompeii am gotterdammerung. The songs themselves are good, but they flow from one to the next too schizophrenically. The first two songs speak to a "you" about power and radicalism vs fanaticism. My major complaint with this album isn't the songs but their order. The most apt comparisons, though, are inventive groups like Hot Chip and Metronomy, both of whom Stealing Sheep are currently eclipsing with this record.Good heart (as always), Interesting (as always), but. The songs are great too, with "Back in Time," "Show Love" and "Why Haven't I" evoking everything from ABBA to Bananarama to Wendy & Bonnie. There's also a lot of synth steel drum and arpeggiated keyboard lines that swirl around like dust-devil. ![]() The production and arrangements on Big Wows are bright and shiny, much like their glittering outfits on the album art, with inventive percussion pinging around the mix that is as melodic as it is beat-driven. One of the most appealing aspects of Stealing Sheep is the way Becky Hawley, Emily Lansley and Lucy Mercer all share the spotlight, taking turns singing lead but also joining forces for heavenly three-part harmonies. Four years later, Stealing Sheep are back with their third album that doesn't take any drastic sonic shifts from Not Real but finds them honing their unique approach. The transition felt organic - you could easily tell the group made both records - and Not Real was my favorite album of 2015. ![]() Liverpool trio Stealing Sheep made a huge leap from their 2012 debut, Into the Diamond Sun, to its follow-up, 2015's Not Real, going from charmingly quirky folk to kitchen sink dancepop. Wallowing in the gutter can be fun, for a day or two, but Serfs Up proves strychnine is better served dipped in chocolate. "Oh Sebastian" even has a string section and Baxter Dury shows up on "Tastes Good with the Money." Lyrically, however, not much has changed - it's still hyperliterate shock and awe, with tales of toxic masculinity, dating prostitutes, the apocalypse, vagina dentata, and the kind of sickos usually only seen in David Lynch movies (see "When I Leave"). The record pulls you in immediately with "Feet," the closest they've ever come to pop, with its sleek electro-glam engine, and keeps you humming with Saul's "I Believe in Something Better," the deteriorated funk of "Kim's Sunsets" (about Kim Jong-Un) and "Fringe Runner" which is Fat White Family's take on early-'80s NYC electro (complete with a Liquid Liquid bassline and sampled orchestra stabs). Mind you, you can't wash off what Fat White Family have got, but their brand of filth has been made presentable and palatable enough that most won't realize what they're really getting before it's too late. (Pulp made a career of its mundanity.) Serfs Up! is not only their best, but also their most commercial sounding record to date. The band wisely decided to escape from London and its easy access to everything and decamped to Sheffield where there's nowhere near as much to do. ![]()
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