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It’s what’s known to marketing gimps and media analysts
as a USP. That, if you roll it out fully, is a Unique
Selling Point to you and me, prole boy/girl. Related
logic dictates that as the current resurgence in this
rock ‘n’ roll lark is proving so plentiful (obviously
read also as a synonym for average or over-swamped,
your call), it’d make little sense to stop chopping
out more carbon clones. Yeah, ideally you do want more
of the same, but with each new thing bundled with its
own cheap special move. Like a musical re-enactment
of the draft meeting for the first Street Fighter game.
Yes, it really could be that exciting. Only that’s what
everyone thinks they’ve already got. Bingo. But they
don’t. Someone could probably do with telling The
Vines’ management that stuffing a giddy Nirvana
fan full of marijuana, winding him up and pushing him
into a spotlight does not constitute the equivalent
of a double-back-kick karate-chop fireball death-grip.
For all their fresh-faced guitary elan, apparently straightforward
Stellastarr* wouldn’t strike you as possessing
a hint of USP. Oh but that’s just the point, they do.
And as a matter of fact, they’ve struck gold and found
the Holy Grail, in that while sounding like a bit of
just about everyone else, they ultimately sound like
nobody but themselves. There’s common ground with Hot
Hot Heat ahead of many others, shared influences
(The Cure, XTC), wobbly tonsils and an early
80s new-wave sharpness. It’s less precise, but heavier,
just as bright and just as unpretentious. But then further
harmonies and zest and attitude make their fuzz-pop
sugar-lump a many sided creation.
Taking to the stage in pristine Blur ’95 chic
(the stripy tops, the smart jackets, the fringes – excepting
the drummer, looking about 12 and naked from the waist
up, save for some fly-shades and gaffer tape crosses
on his nipples) is a suggestion that kind of fits. It’s
art school certainly (theirs was the Pratt Institute
in Manhattan incidentally, where they met, formed, made
noise), but it’s solid and bouncy and hungry. Remember
the way Damon used to leave the ground for ‘There’s
No Other Way’ and ‘Popscene’? That spirit is alive and
well. You were wondering where the vigour, spunk and
airy adolescent hopelessness had gone in your guitar
pop? Well, looks like New York got that too.
Their press release actually goes to pains stressing
their detachment from the rest of the NYC set. Yeah,
what about Interpol? It may be more or less true
for the rest, but several occasions see their droll
strumming and soul-snaking Hooky bass-lines evoking
no-one else (apart from Joy Division and The
Cure, natch). They’re the Interpol who are just
too scared to go into that dark place. And, y’know,
quite right. They’re full of the full fucking joys of
the summer and that kind of thing should be left to
hang loose rather than boxed up. Front-Starr Shawn
Christensen is full of himself and his childhood
dreams by the looks of things, with a smug vocal to
boot. But as he hauls the last chord from his guitar
on ‘School Ya’ with a dissonant stare and his fringe
stuck to his forehead he looks positively iconic, in
his own head certainly, in ours too probably. And lead
EP track ‘Somewhere Across Forever’ is the kind
of thing that jumps thought processes and goes straight
to your head. So that’s a USP verging on ESP, then.
James Berry for Crud Magazine 2003©
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