Pale Young Gentlemen - Pale Young Gentlemen [2007] MP3 @ 256

Pale Young Gentlemen - Pale Young Gentlemen Self-Released in March 2007 Track listing: 1. Fraulein 3:03 2. Me & Nikolai 3:19 3. Saturday Night 3:36 4. My Light, Maria 2:48 5. Clap Your Hands 2:59 6. Up North 2:18 7. A Shadow On the Wall 2:12 8. As a War 2:42 9. An Appeal to St. Peter 4:13 10. Single Days 3:46 From Pitchfork Media: Too much Black Kids. Not enough black people. Congrats-- you're caught up on the last month of "why indie rock sucks" and prepared to dismiss the blog-approved, self-released album from Pale Young Gentlemen on principle. Oh, if only it were 2005 again for these guys! Their penny orchestra sound is just enough off the beaten path to raise notice and the cutesy DIY details can fill out the rest (there's a song called "Clap Your Hands" and anyone who received this record by mail now has the drummer's address). But if people are really willing to stem the process of thrusting embryonic bands into unjustified shitstorms of press, more power to Pale Young Gentlemen, as their eponymous debut is a lean 30 minutes that's better served as a springboard to something greater, equally balanced promise and "not there yet." Pale Young Gentlemen employ a female cellist, but the band name is most definitely not used for ironic purposes. Though it starts with a sinister riff that could pass for Miami bass gone acoustic, the opener has a bold chorus pining for the "milk white glory" of an unattainable "Fraulein" with a classic piano-pop melody. From Beirut's heat-n-serve Franco-Americanisms to Gogol Bordello's Balky/Balkan dance of joy, indie European vacations are becoming more frequent, but the Gentlemen opt towards hitting the Great White North with a frequency that must play well in their home state of Wisconsin. The first half of the album plays closest to this style, with jumpy upbeat rhythms and stein hoisting chorales that ratchet the bawdiness of "Me & Nikolai" ("we saw her standing there/ she was in her underwear") and prop up the good-timey Supertramp vamps of "Saturday Night". The self-released and self-produced aspect isn't a canard either, as there's a natural sound that renders the guitars paper thin, places the vocals front and center and has every other instrument sounding direct to tape. Usually, you're supposed to extrapolate how a beefier budget could make this better, but it's quite the opposite here. It's easy to imagine the wintry quietude of piano ballad "As a War" drowning in symphonic goo or the rippling "Up North" (a two-minute love letter about escaping to Canada) being robbed of its innocent charm. Singer Mike Reisenauer becomes a make-or-break proposition, as his falsetto dangerously courts Chris Martin parody, and he often confuses overpronunciation ("mother" becomes "mortar") with theatricality-- "Clap Your Hands" grabs the listener with the most force, but there's an affected, overly fussy nature to it ("Click your heels/ Dance, dance/ Grab your girl/ Dance, dance") that's a little too Panic! at the Beer Hall for its own good. But while Pale Young Gentlemen is frontloaded and slightly naïve like a record of this sort should be, there's more than enough reason to anticipate what they're capable of when they decide to get darker, older, and less gentle.

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nanis2 (2012-10-05)

please seed! no seeders...