|
Graham Smith
of Kleenex Girl Wonder is an unstoppable tune-machine, cut from the same
cloth as Robert Pollard, whose records he's clearly spent a bit of time
listening to (for proof, just check out "Fort Rourke"). Sexual
Harassment - KGW's first full-length, following a couple of splendid 7"
EPs - sounds like somebody's greatest-hits album reinterpreted on a twelve-dollar
budget, with hyper-chintzy guitars. the tinniest Casio in history, the
odd theremin and scratch-vocal singing banging out one too-good-to-be-true
little pop song after another (plus a couple of cutting-room-floor scraps,
most of which are at the beginning of the record), totaling 24 in all.
Smith tends to pound his hooks into his listeners' heads, doubling his
vocal melodies with hooting synth parts, but the hooks are sturdy enough
to take the pounding: the exuberant "Wireless," "Such A
Puzzling Danger" and the title track (an Energizer bunny of a tune
that pops up twice, with different lyrics) are almost frustratingly catchy.
KGW is already a songwriting force to reckon with, and if anybody ever
gives them any recording money at all, watch out, world. Cop a feel: the
above, plus "Keep It In Mind" `Leon Durham" and the videogame-noir
instrumental "Cuba." |