Conner
"The White Cube" CD
Underground
Sounds Records
Genres: garage rock, indie rock
Jan 26 - Feb 1 2004 |
You're
going to have to face it - Conner sounds like The Strokes.
They sound like The White Stripes. They sound like The
Libertines. Conner plays what we all like to call
"garage rock revival," and they've got it down to a tee,
even using vintage recording and playing gear to add to the
old-fashioned sound (just like the White Stripes did on Elephant,
nonetheless.)
Predictably, those who enjoy the familiar Strokes-y garage rock
sound will probably find a lot to enjoy in The White Cube;
those who never liked the trend will likely find themselves similarly
dissatisfied with this. The songs on this album all sound pretty similar, despite some
strong recording-style variations (meaning some tunes are much louder
than others, and have different recording 'textures'), but vary in
melodic effectiveness. The two top 'singles' are "Easy" and "Tuesday," which are extremely
enjoyable rock numbers, even though they sound as if they came straight off of Is
This It. Some of the other tunes can drag a bit, but for the
most part Conner's high energy, hook-filled formula works well.
I like the fact that Conner seems to employ a sound much
more faithful to garage rock than some of the other recent
revivalists. Pure Nuggets and Pebbles influences
are present in tunes like "Have You Ever Been Asleep" and
"On the Ground", much moreso than the less obvious ones
found in Strokes and Hives records of yesteryear.
The White Cube is a terrific album for garage rock revival
fanatics, and is very successful in its accessibility.
Recommended, if you like the sort of thing.
85%
Matt Shimmer
[Vitals: 10 tracks, distributed by the
band, released 2003] |
