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Review: Jack Foley
TELEVISION advertising has helped to provide a much-needed breakthrough
for countless bands in recent times, so it's only fitting that
Sweden's Caesars should be the latest band to benefit.
Their signature tune, Jerk It Out, seems to be everywhere
at the moment, in light of forming the high profile TV and cinema
campaign for Apple’s new iPod Shuffle, as well as the soundtrack
for the Fifa 2004 PlayStation game.
Its belated success is richly deserved, given the way it combines
punchy, 60's flavoured slabs of scuzzy guitars and Inspiral Carpets-style
organs with an alluring vocal style and sing-along chorus.
It has an energy that’s hard to ignore and which really
should have been embraced when it was released as part of the
band's original 2003 album, 39 Minutes Of Bliss (In An Otherwise
Meaningless World).
Fortunately, for those who missed out on the delights of that
indie classic, Caesars have stepped back into the limelight with
a follow-up, the equally catchy Paper Tigers (which wisely
includes Jerk It Out).
Hence, anyone who digs the old-school indie style of that
single really ought to run out and buy the new long-player, given
that it's a melodic, joyful throwback to the early Nineties that
also incorporates some excellent guitar riffs from the Sixties
and Seventies.
Think The Bees mixed with The Inspirals, with some Beatles and
Doors thrown in, and you might have some idea of what to expect.
Highlights include the breezy, 60s psychedelia of Out There
(a surefire contender for a future single release), the edgy Doors-inspired
organ-filled May The Rain, and the the soulful My
Heart Is Breaking Down, which manages to find a little joy
in the darkest of themes.
Title track, Paper Tigers, is another instant success,
building delightfully to its soaring chorus that just screams
out to be sung along with. If anything, it's probably the best
track on the album.
Yet the whole LP is such a breezy affair that it's really difficult
to pick out a fault.
Your Time Is Near, for instance, contains the sort of
melodies that Lennon and McCartney would be proud to call their
own, while the clap-happy beats of Throwaway seem designed
with foot-tapping in mind.
The slower, more deliberate Winter Song includes some
mellotron to demonstrate the band's growing musical diversity,
while the driving rhythm of Soulchaser is simply brilliant.
There's even a hint of Stone Roses in the glorious guitar riffs
of Good and Gone, which provide a nice backdrop to the
60s-laced vocals.
All of which serves to ensure that Caesars' Paper Tigers
is well worth shouting about - even if it's taken a re-release
to put them on the map.
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