Cajun Dance Party
The Colourful Life
XL Recordings
By Dany Sloan
Besides the Tories taking the mayor’s seat, the big stories coming out of London these days involve the spate of teenage violence – stabbings, girl-on-girl beat-downs and loose gangs that harass tourists and locals alike for nothing more than 20 quid.
It’s too bad that these negative dealings grab the headlines, instead of the quickly growing contingent of A-levelers making brilliantly unclassifiable and memorable tunes.
Cajun Dance Party are not the teens that you see on Gossip Girl or Skins, they’re the type that take their course work seriously, which shines through in their oft-quoted lyrics. It’s music for the literate generation; those that hail Colin Meloy as a bigger rebel than Cobain ever was.
If 2007 was their training year, with stunning singles like “Amylase,” then this year is all about the race as the Cajuns release not just their debut album, The Colourful Life, but also a follow-up, which is slated for this autumn.
For those that have been following the band’s every move on the interwebs, the skeleton of the album will sound very familiar. There are two new songs included, which are “No Joanna” and “The Hill, The View & The Lights,” although everything else has been tuned up for mass consumption.
“Amylase,” which really forced me to start paying attention to them, sounds as fresh as ever. It combines all of the best bits of the band, sounding anthemic without being overblown. One of the old demos, “The Firework,” never really struck me as much of anything in the past, but it’s given its proper treatment here. Finally the track shines and elevates itself above the rest of the album, and at times, it even rocks.
The most impressive feat of all is that this feels like a singles collection. Perhaps it’s because most of the tracks are already familiar, but beyond that, the band has a knack for creating literate, instantly familiar tunes that don’t just honor their heroes, but also their country as a whole. While a bunch of chavs are knifing each other over the results of a football match, these guys understand that real change is only achieved through art and passion.
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