The Clean – Mister Pop (Music Review)
By Bill Purdy • Sep 2nd, 2009 • Category: Categories, Indie Pop, ReviewsThe Clean
Mister Pop
Merge
4.5 out of 5
Mister Pop, the latest album from seminal Kiwi rockers The Clean, opens with the languid “Loog,” in which a female vocalist (I have no idea who it is) “ba ba ba”s over a Ray Manzarek-style organ riff. Sounding a bit like a half-tempo shoegaze version of The Stranglers’ “Golden Brown,” it’s a subtle introduction to a record that deserves more attention than it demands – one of the best (and most stylistically varied) records I’ve heard this year.
The album’s second cut, “Are You Really On Drugs,” provides its most memorable lyric, delivered alongside an infectiously subdued melody that lingers long after the record concludes. “In the Dreamlife You Need a Rubber Soul” is equal parts country-punk twang and poppy tunefulness – it has a sort of a Beatles by-way-of The Mekons feel. “Asleep In The Tunnel” sounds like it could be an outtake from The Feelies The Good Earth; one could imagine Peter Buck (wearing sunglasses and a leather vest over a white tunic, of course) behind the boards for it, too.
“Back in the Day” conjures a simple Velvet Underground vibe, with David Kilgour’s sing-talk recalling Lou Reed at his most jaded. “Moonjumper,” a meandering five and a half minute instrumental psychedelic hoe-down, arrives like a downpour on a hot summer day, leaving the air behind it thick and syrupy. “Factory Man” plays like a Robyn Hitchcock single: cute and precious (dare I say “twee”?), and socially relevant. “Simple Fix” sounds like a filler instrumental track lifted from a Dandy Warhols album, replete with burbling bongwater sound effects and lazy day whistling.
The record’s high point is “Tensile,” which sounds a bit like a Kraftwerk cut performed by a New Order tribute band. Its clean, propulsive rhythm and whimsical keyboard riff are perfectly complemented by an odd-but-appealing vocoder track. The song has a certain timeless quality – no surprise from a band whose career has touched four different decades now.
If Flight of the Conchords has taught us anything, it’s that being “New Zealand’s fourth most…” anything results in a less than whelming commercial reception in the United States. The Clean could lay claim to being New Zealand’s fourth most widely known musical export (behind Crowded House, Split Enz, and the aforementioned Conchords), but judging from the blank stares from some of the most knowledgeable music fans I know, might as well be New Zealand’s foremost manufacturer of fine timepieces. Mister Pop is a pretty strong little (just 35 minutes long) record, but it might be a bit too understated to expand the band’s audience in the U.S.
Something tells me they like it that way.
Mister Pop is currently streaming in its entirety at the Merge Records website: www.mergerecords.com
Bill Purdy is not a musician. He hasn't a musical bone in his body. That pretty much disqualifies him as a musician (you don't want to be in the room on the rare occasion when he tries to make music), but it apparently doesn't impair his ability to consume music — especially new music — at a ravenous pace. He also likes to tell anyone within earshot what he thinks of music, fancies himself a critic of some sort. We, of course, know better.
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