The Dandy Warhols
Welcome To The Monkey House
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The Dandy Warhols
Welcome To The Monkey House
Capitol, 2003
RiYL: David Bowie, Black Rebel Motorcycle Club, Duran Duran |
With the help of their contributors’ switch-flipping, knob-dialing, and bleeding-ear falsettos, frontman Courtney Taylor-Taylor and company have fashioned what amounts to a Velvet Underground Railroad, a swift retreat from their classic-rock riffs that once bore the Lou Reed imprimatur. Fitting, then, that the Dandys should name their new Portland studio and conceptual chem lab The Odditorium, for the art den serves not just as the proving grounds for their most recent musical arcana, but also the vanishing point for the fat hooks that took their Thirteen Tales From Urban Bohemia platinum throughout much of Europe. How very odd indeed.
Of course, tastes do change, labels get fickle, and fans grow formula-weary, all of which is good news for these connoisseurs of the au courant. Besides, no real music fan believes artists should be tarred for daring to climb out from their pigeonholes, say, with MIDIs in their fret hands. Monkey House isn’t without its flashes. "We Used To Be Friends," despite an eerie resemblance to Roxette’s late-'80s abortion "The Look," seizes on manic keyboards, catchy handclaps and Taylor-Taylor’s eunuch-inspired upper register for a radio-friendly first single.
Then there’s the Dandys-Dando collaboration, "You Were The Last High," which tries on electronic pitch bends and subtle tremolos as it relishes its own breathy indifference. “So maybe you loved me,” Taylor-Taylor resolutely reasons, “but now maybe you don’t. And maybe you’ll call me, maybe you won’t.” The song marks one of the band’s highest highs to date -- no small feat for the minds behind tracks titled "Horse Pills," "Lou Weed," and "Not If You Were The Last Junkie On Earth."
The album also boasts some earnest experiments. On "The Dandy Warhols Love Almost Everyone" -- a title whose escape clause likely excepts underwhelmed rock critics -- nary a vocal drops below G-above-high-C, a conceit that might be more understandable were Taylor-Taylor’s natural mezzo-tenor not so seductive and self-assured.
But then there are puzzlers such as "Plan A" and the faux-Bowie "I Am A Scientist," which seem eccentric for their own sake and mostly disrupt whatever momentum Monkey House manages to build. "The Dope" opens with the sort of pulsing, persistent fuzz bass that gives your early-bird neighbors homicidal stirrings, while "Insincere Because I" spends a full minute mucking about in the electronic bayou before morphing into a free-floating hymn worthy of a Spiritualized B-side.
All told, Monkey House is hardly the total implosion that some fans and pundits have deemed it. On first pass the album might feel like a lateral or even backward step. After repeated spins, however, its subtler arrangements take up digs in your head like pesky squatters who one day, inexplicably, start doing chores or even paying rent.
JEREMY HORELICK |