Highlights: Hip Kitten Spinning Chrome, I Can’t Control My Feet,
Mein Kapitan, They Call Me Silence
Much like 2011’s Here Before, Platinum Coils marks a brilliant return from a largely forgotten
post-punk outfit. And much like The Feelies did last year, The Monochrome Set
not so much deviate from the sound of their relatively low-key heyday as make
it somewhat more commercial, more lush, more appealing. Fine with me: most of
the songs on Platinum Coils are
superior to almost anything off Strange
Boutique (their acclaimed debut from 1980).
So is the band’s
signature quirkiness absent from this album? Well, not entirely, though we
certainly have less of that, and with songs as amazingly catchy as the opening
double attack “Hip Kitten Spinning Chrome” and “I Can’t Control My Feet”, you
wouldn’t really mind (though I have a feeling that swinging hook line in the
two songs is rather similar – however, what a classic hook line that is!).
Actually, the album’s melodies are largely excellent, whether they go for
Caribbean intonations (“Waiting For Alberto”) or predictably country-esque ones
(“Les Cowboys”). The whole thing sounds memorable, charming and utterly
convincing.
Still, for all its
consistency, Platinum Coils does lose
me towards the end. “I’m Happy To Be Here” is an excellent proof of the point
Robert Forster of The Go-Betweens makes in his terrific 10 Rules of Rock’n’Roll book. Meaning that the penultimate song on an album is also the weakest one. You could of course give me dozens of cases
when that is not true, but “I’m Happy…” is so frustratingly unremarkable that
you would have to fall for Forster’s preposterous/brilliant theory.
Sadly, the closing
instrumental “Brush With Death” is no great shakes either. Just a perfectly
decent, perfectly average, leisurely end to a great album from a forgotten, but
reinvigorated band – that gave it another shot and didn’t miss it. Certainly
not artistically.
8/10
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