Louis XIV

It’s been a while since I wrote about an album. In fact, a look at my archives reveals that the last one was The Beautiful South’s Golddiggers, Headnodders and Pholk Songs, and that was back in — Christ! — March. It’s time, I think, to get back into the swing of things, and what better way to do so than with a bit of glam rock?

If you’ve not heard of them yet, then let’s get this out of the way now; they sound like T-Rex. If you have heard of them, then you’re probably tired of hearing the comparisons to T-Rex but they do sound like them and it needs to be said. It’s clearest of all with the track Letter to Dominique, which appears to be T-Rex’s Metal Guru with different lyrics. And that’s not a bad thing — it’s still an excellent song but an obvious rip that has to have been intentional.

But T-Rex comparisons aside, this is a great album, and it’s been a while since I bought an album that makes me want to play it again as soon as it’s over. From the opening track Louis XIV with its orchestral openings segueing into dirty glam, through the excellent Finding Out True Love Is Blind (which I think was the first single released from the album), through the aforementioned Letter to Dominique and all the way to the omnious, guitar-plucking closing track Ball of Twine, there’s no trace of filler — every track stands out, and none of them have my fingers reaching for the Skip Track button.

I’d like to tell you more about who the band actually are, but their website won’t tell me. Why are band websites so uniformly useless, anyway? If they’re not crammed with irritating Flash that chokes my computer and plays 32kb/s snippets of their songs without me asking then they’re just lacking in any sort of helpful information. Blah. Anyway, I’m sure they’re all lovely people, though for some reason — possibly based on their lyrics — I find myself hoping they wash their hands before eating.

Finally, they deserve recognition for having an attractive naked woman all over their album artwork and website. It adds nothing to the musical experience per se, but then I don’t think it was ever supposed to.