| CD REVIEW Jamaica |
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Band : Jamaica Back in 2007 the 3-piece French band Poney Poney (don't confuse for Pony Pony, whom are also French) posted a series of playful Elektro/ Guitar hits on the Internet, which immediately drew attention from places far beyond their Paris hometown. They released a couple of EPs and found several people in the more established scene ready to remix some of their songs. After the release of the April 2009 released When Do You Wanna Stop Working? EP the third Poney Poney member left. That came about half a year after Antoine Hillaire (vocals & guitar; also guitarist for Tahiti Boy and The Palmtree Family) and Florent Lyonnet (bass & vocals; never played an instrument before Poney Poney, until his friend Antoine pushed him into it, so the duo could start playing their own versions of the well-honed Pop and American-style hits that united them) opted for the new bandname (there's a video on the band's MySpace supposedly explaining the band's choice of their name – sorry I can't be more certain, but I haven't had the time to check it for myself) had decided to leave the companies they were working at (day jobs: a record label in the case of Antoine, a training center for psychiatric care providers in the case of Florent) in order to more fully concentrate on the band's music...so probably the duo's seriousness about their music was a bit too much for the third party? Things moved relatively fast from now on. Antoine & Florent reworked some of their Poney Poney songs, wrote & recorded new ones, were finally noticed by the people at Cooperative, signed a deal...then asked their former collaborator Xavier de Rosnay to produce their first album, whom in turn called in American producer Peter Franco (a huge U2 fan, he has Daft Punk on his cv). When asked to talk about what the guys' music sounds like, I swear I was thinking about the likes of The Cars (and even Devo) when the bit about “love of well-honed Pop and American-style hits” came in the band's info sheet, but it turns out the influences were rather Billy Idol, Prince, Police, Dire Straits, and U2! The guys must've posted new material running up to recording 'em with de Rosnay and Franco, because they were already getting comparisons to the likes of Justice and Phoenix (and they're particularly proud of having been compared to the latter, citing 'em as additional idols). An excerpt from the info sheet mentioned earlier: “...The fruit of all these efforts was No Problem, for which they...dared to bring off the killer riff (“Jericho”, tailor-made for FM radio), and produced bubble-gum melodies (“Short And Entertaining”) and a groove straight out of Prince's songbook (“Secrets”). The album is both sincere and playful, radiant and full of hope. It defies the laws of mathematics by combining Pop songs with a universal appeal and a rounded production in terms of the groove and very tight arrangements and playing...”! Are we getting confused yet? Well, then maybe it's time to go listen to some of the songs at myspace.com/ithinkilikejamaica. What you'll find are classy “Pop” tunes with great vocal singalong qualities (great care has been taken to make real nice lead/ backing harmonies throughout the album) and the occasional sharp bit of guitar (which however never goes off into wall-of-sound proportions). The “elektro” bit of the music is attained through the drums, which in the case of the recordings was certainly off a drum machine. A couple of songs (and take that literally) also get the added sound of a keyboard. As a contrast to the tight play, there's some funny tongue-in-cheek passages in the hacked-up lyrics (that technique bringing some angularities in a good amount of the 11 tracks of the 36-minute album. In essence, what you get here is a truly nice Pop-Rock/ Rock-Pop album, a light and airy affair, and everyone whom gets acquainted with it will see the sometimes dreary days of the Fall brighten up whenever (s)he plays the album! Nice, very nice indeed...and almost a contender for the year-lists. 95/100 Tony. |
