The Dandy Warhols - 'Odditorium or Warlords of Mars' (Parlophone) Released 12/09/05

 

 

 

Fault is difficult to find on an album as seamless as this. From the opening drone of ‘Love is the New Feel Awful’ to the closing porno pulse of ‘A Loan Tonight’ Courtney Taylor-Taylor brandishes a newly found fervour for painfully poptastic grooves. Like the Guerrilla’s funk of ‘Easy’ and the sleaze-billy rock of ‘All the Money or the Simple Life Honey’ which both simmer for minutes before exploding into a myriad of psychotropic colours. There’s plenty of their characteristic breezy rock with Courtney’s ethereal whine resting low in blankets of feedback and horns in the anthemic ‘Love is the New Awful’, and the reclined ‘Holding Me Off’.  Lead single ‘Smoke it’ has the pop sensibility of Supergrass married with the incongruous ranting of a bedevilled Courtney, which blesses the track with more rumpus than the Scissor Sisters in a Flower shop.

'Odditorium or Warlords of Mars' isn’t without comedy, the campfire jig of ‘The New Country’ and the Jeffrey Lewis styled ditty ‘Did You Make a Song with Otis’ are both charming flourish’s of buoyant exuberance, showing a real love and childish approach to song writing. It’s been a while since we saw the Dandy’s of old, but finally they’re back. I make no bones about it, this album wont change your life, its not revolutionary, it is simply a return to form done in the most glorious and kaleidoscopic way.