Earth to the Dandy Warhols [Australian Import]

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Customer reviews

review by: physics_mark date: 2008-09-01 rating:
Still in orbit
After an initial honeymoon period I learned to hate Odditorium Or Warlords Of Mars, the Dandy Warhols' previous full-length work, having originally given it five stars here but ultimately falling out of love with a sloppy collection of distracted noises haphazardly recorded just so they could get their friends' voices on the CD. The tidier sounds of Earth To The Dandy Warhols come, therefore, as a great relief and the album as a whole is a far more satisfying listen.

The Dandy Warhols are never conventional, yet there is a surprising feel of musical normality trickling through much of Earth To The Dandy Warhols. Indeed, it seems they have received the message of rejection aimed at their satellite of late and have, in general, tightened up the sprawling mess of sounds that was Odditorium, while at the same time deploying the array of scratchy guitars and bassy rumbles we have come to expect from them and make them unique.

The World (Come On) opens the effort beautifully with clanging bells and a clipped guitar riff which propels the song wonderfully, before melting into a rare moment of savage rawness in Mission Control's opening bars and the funky twangs of Welcome To The Third World. Love Song bounces along nicely with a neat banjo accompaniment, and Mis Amigos - a re-branded version of inter-album single "Me And My Friends" - is entertaining if mildly repetitive. Unusually for the Warhols there are echos of other bands threaded through the music here, from U2, INXS and R.E.M. to a splendid twist on James Brown, yet they manage to mix in Zia's keyboards and a plentiful supply of extra effects to keep the sound their own throughout.

The Warhols have rather lost the plot with their epic album closers in recent times, and Musee D'Nougat, while initially shivering the nerves with a distant continuation of the space themed sounds, turns into a rather pointless 14 minutes of background noise without purpose or definition. Nevertheless there is plenty enough interest in the rest of the work to warrant good listening time and if the lyrics are unspectacular and occasionally unclear, the overall robustness and welcome jollity of the remaining 12 tracks is well worth hearing.

Earth To The Dandy Warhols is a step back from the brink for the Portland foursome - while there's the definite impression that the creative power of the late 90s has now faded, the spark that makes the Warhols different is still quietly sizzling in what is now an impressively broad, and deep, compendium of work.


review by: date: 2008-08-02 rating:
Yum Yum...!
After the mixed reception for their last album "Odditorium", "Earth to the Dandy Warhols" will come as something of a relief to some fans who thought the band were losing their way. Still in the Space lane the music is full of Dandys style riffs, grooves and sound effects (which i enjoy) and it really rocks! The album is of course littered with typical Dandys' musical signatures too, especially "And Then I Dreamt of Yes", all 13 tracks are very very good - a mixture of styles and rhythms (even a little Rolling Stones style take on "Welcome to the Third World" which includes a James Brown style riff), the production is crystal clear, the album is a grower - "Monkey House" still gets played regularly in my house, and "Earth..." is every bit as good, and looks like being another very successful album for the band - Dandys rule!

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