Album Review

Johnny Foreigner – Our Bipolar Friends

• 26th Mar 2008

On MySpace, they spell their location as Burmingharm, you kay and say, “e write noisy pop songs for people what like the same bands as we do. Last year we put out two 7″ records on Laundrette Records. they both sold out and got played on the rah-dio and stuffs.” I’ve never found misspelling endearing, except for maybe some of the wittier parts of the Lol-speak fraternity. So I approach the CD with some trepidation.

This band have reviewed well on, say, Drowned In Sound, and there’s a certain chaotic charm to the tumbling mess of these two tracks. The female/male vocal dynamic works to some extent; but when they begin to fire the guitars up, they end up as an unfocussed Bloc Party. The vocals are part Kele (2:30 seconds in) mixed with a splash of David Byrne. But the palette is muddy, and the song doesn’t sit anywhere apart at the point where you can’t enjoy it through motion sickness, but can’t ignore it. The changes in tempo and volume are as raw as the mix.

The second moves into At The Drive In style spoken word over similarly raking guitars with a little more Britishness in their meandering and its timbre. Similar raw mixing, ramshackle home-production that’s punctuated by 80s style sweet female vocal stabs. If you compared this to ‘Invalid Litter Dept. but added crumpets instead of cocaine to the mix; purposeful misspelling, and Pac-Man ghosts on the back cover of the CD. It’s a hard thing to place this band.