My back has been seriously fucked all week. It clicked out on Saturday and got gradually worse until I had to be brought home from work Monday. I was only filling a kettle when it happened. So, for the past week I've done nothing but think about things. Then this album came across the death decks. I thought was rather good but the original write up, for Metaltalk, didn't get accepted so I tweaked it a bit and here it is...

The Dandy Warhols

“This Machine”

Alt Rock

The End Records

Released 24^th April

                The Dandy Warhols is an alternative rock outfit that came out of Portland, Oregon in 1994. The band’s founding core of singer-guitarist Courtney Taylor-Taylor, guitarist Peter Holmström and keyboard player Zia McCabe were joined in ’98 by current drummer Brent DeBoer. If you are unfamiliar with the band, you will almost certainly have heard  their “Bohemian Like You” track that was used in a Vodafone ad in 2001 which pretty much put them on everybody’s radar.

“This Machine”, the band’s eighth album, is quite dark and stripped back. The cover of “16 Tons” is given a spiky horn driven blues groove. “I Am Free” is, despite the Dandy’s arty pretensions, a driven pop song by another name. It has nice brass work too. “Seti Vs The Wowi Signal” courts a Stonesy shambolic lope and “Enjoy Yourself” is like something Bowie would do with Iggy Pop if he needed to be cool again and Rono was still alive. It is a laid back affair that mixes Gothic with an eighty’s new wave artiness and a real lazy vocal that overall sounds a little dated; a situation not helped by the band’s urgent attempts at eclecticism and the need to avoid mainstream acceptance; a need that in itself is a cliché.

                This is not an album to just dip into nor will it appeal to everyone but the production allows a spontaneous live feel that gives a satisfyingly rough edge to its contrived altiness; a guitar album that offers the metal head a chance to take a break from the balls-out aural onslaught of today’s hard rock arena. “This Machine” is the sort of album to slap on the death decks on a hung over Sunday morning when it’s raining and all you want to do is fuck all.