Review of Tulipomania Album by Boy Crisis

Review of Boy Crisis's album Tulipomania

Boy Crisis Tulipomania Album

This is an interesting CD- it seems to be conforming to the current dance-pop-indie-whatsit dominating not only MTV2 but the A-list on Radio 1, complete with self-aware moaning noises and obscure references - 'You can do me up like Woodrow Wilson' on Dressed To Digress, but it seems to be penetrating a little deeper. The song structures are flawless, the hooks subtle yet stay for a long time and there's plenty of melody. Interestingly there's some discordance used in the record, The Elementary Particles is a good example of this- if it weren't for the hyped production this would have a slow, disturbing feel to it. This unease continues into the next track, Sex & Violence, with a 70's porn music bassline running underneath before effortlessly transforming into what The Bloodhound Gang might sound like with some taste. It's, as aforementioned, very interesting.

The band are at home working with the dance theme, the duo of MURDER MURDER MURDER and BANG BANG BANG exemplifying this rather well, sounding a bit like Fischerspooner in places- very reminiscent of the electroclash movement of the early part of the decade. That said, it's not a perfect album: when Boy Crisis start to slow things down, it doesn't work quite as well, losing a touch of the charm that imbues the rest of the record in tracks like 1981; another of theirs familiar with the 70's porn 'theme' that doesn't carry it off quite as well as it should.

A lot of talent surrounds this album, in vocals, instrumentation and especially the production- on a lot of records like that, something inevitably ends up buried, but not here. Listening to this is a great way to spend 50 minutes, evoking the best of modern dance music with a large slice of pop sensibilities along the way.

Conrad Hughes


Site - http://www.myspace.com/boycrisis

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