We Have Band – WHB-EP (Music Review)
By Bill Purdy • Dec 20th, 2009 • Category: Punk/New Wave/Hardcore, ReviewsWe Have Band
US EP
iTunes
Rating: 2.5 out of 5
Link:
MySpace: http://www.myspace.com/wehaveband
As a teenager, I discovered Manchester – through headphones attached to a cheap Panasonic cassette player playing a freshly-purchased copy of New Order’s Power, Corruption and Lies. And here I am now, some twenty-seven (ahem) years later, with in-ear phones attached to my Palm Pre, rediscovering Manchester (which I seem to do on at least an annual basis) via We Have Band’s WHB-EP. Appropriately, the first song is called “Hear It in the Cans.”
On their 4-song digital-only release, WHB-EP, We Have Band serves up three self-produced singles and a Pet Shop Boys cover for curious American listeners, as a teaser for a full-length allegedly due in Q1 2010. It’s best described as cool, detached post-punk influenced disco; Human League meets Hot Chip. It’s not entirely groundbreaking stuff – Delorean, for example, is doing a Basque-flavored version of more or less the same shtick – but We Have Band does what it does quite capably.
“Hear It In The Cans” is the best of the original tracks included here. It’s a catchy throwback to leftfield mid -80s synthpop (think Comsat Angels, remixed by Yello). “Oh!” is pure minimalist disco, built around a single repeated phrase and (well, duh) a bunch of “Oh!”s. You’ll probably hear it in a movie some day. “You Came Out” marries bratty vocals with a catchy little guitar riff – then layers a “Young Folks”-like whistle riff over the top. Like the other three cuts, it’s simple and it’s catchy – if a bit unfinished (all three cuts are appended “DIY Version,” so I suppose that’s to be expected).
Folks will probably find themselves most naturally drawn to We Have Band’s faithful cover of “West End Girls.” I find it a bit too faithful (i.e., it doesn’t really sound much like the other three songs on the EP, most notably in the lack of female vocals), though not necessarily inappropriate for inclusion here — they are trying to win over US listeners, after all. It is, however, almost completely devoid of the irony that was a Pet Shop Boys hallmark. In that sense, anyway, it’s a pleasant-sounding failure.
We Have Band (including “Hear It in the Cans [DIY Version]”) has been included on two Kitsuné Maison compilations to date. Insofar as there is such a thing as a Kitsuné aesthetic, We Have Band fits right in with it. That is to say, the trio comes off as willfully detached – and as French as any British band can be. They’re easy to like, but tough to love hard. And they’re perfectly OK with that.
Me, I’ll wait for the full length to decide how I really feel about We Have Band. For now, I think I’ll love them like the 2009 Beaujolais Nouveau – with greasy food and low expectations.
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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