Sound Team - ‘Movie Monster’ (Parlophone) Released 25/09/06

 

Honed from the twenty two track squad of 2002’s ‘Into The Lens’ to a first choice eleven here, ‘Movie Monster’ is a much more focused creature than it’s predecessor, yet still it manages to cram in a bit of everything that’s been great about mainstream American indie (let’s ignore the Parlophone patronage for a bit) of late. There’s glittery Killers glamour on ‘Shattered Glass’ and Spinto MORcore on ‘No More Birthdays’ and ‘Back In Town’. There are the eccentric rhythms of Arcade Fire (‘Handful of Billions’) and the gloomy beauty of Interpol (‘Your Eyes Are Liars’). In fact, if any of these bands are in your record collection, then Sound Team really should be there too.

 

That’s not to say that Matt Oliver and Bill Baird’s mob are merely some identikit rent-a-yank indie collective. There’s an electronic, experimental side to this album that suggests Kraftwerk and late ‘70s Bowie haven’t been far from the studio turntable; ‘TV Torso’ and the title track float by minimally and hypnotically, missing the melodic craft of a track like ‘Born To Please’ but allowing a free run to Sam Sanford’s Walkmen-like guitars and Michael Baird’s synthesizers.

 

Regardless of the shades and colours that the band throw Pollock-like over the canvas of ‘Movie Monster’, the shapes that continually emerge are those of – quite simply – brilliant pop songs. True, Sound Team have been scratching away at the surface for a couple of albums now, but this time they’ve found the dynamite. They’ll be here soon people. They won’t be going away.