Artist: Bureau
Title: Demo #1
By Conor Duffy
Calling themselves "stadium electro with telecasters," Bureau make a sound that is modern yet steeped in the history of electronic music, particularly the electro-pop heyday of the 1980s. Indeed, there are times when listening to this demo when you might believe you had mistakenly put a Gary Numan album in your CD player, and not a curious collection of angular guitars and electronic flourishes, made by three men who each recorded their parts in seperate bedrooms, not meeting until after the recording was completed.
Unlike some of the other bands reviewed here, that like to chip away or perhaps just hack at a listener, Bureau prefer cut with lyrics and beats as sharp as a ravor blade. 'Magazine' and 'Living With TV', which open this five-track CD, both work as prime examples of this approach.
I must admit it took more than one listen for the music here to endear itself to me, but once I opened my ears to it, I found it to be just as exciting and energetic as anything I'd usually listen to. It's good to hear a band using their influences in such a way, and any group wanting to be more than a Franz Ferdinand clone is all right with me.