Eel

A lot has been said recently about indie rock nerds growing up and having kids. Assuming these people have blown most of their kids’ Disneyland fund on records, a viable alternative is to lock the brats in a brightly coloured room and blast this album. The kid might suffer a sensory overload to the chagrin of parents and educators for as long as they have to look after him/her, but at least it's cheap, and it will prep the youngsters for their first Melt-Banana album. People People is an assemblage of major key melodies borrowed from Nintendo games, ’60s pop songs, skipping-rope anthems, and elementary school choir staples, all pumped full of helium and released into an electrical storm. Ideal for children or posi-core ravers who scorn the goofy glow sticks, Eel’s sound is berserk with ecstatic naivety. Although the group pause to breathe every so often (track 11 is the lounge piece), it gets right back up and into a frenzy the minute it’s done. This is a toy soldier marching band, pixelated and broadcast on a Japanese arcade screen — a Technicolor, jejune blizzard of happy. It could drive kids into a revolt if their parents refuse to serve them cotton candy three meals a day. Certainly not for chronic frowners, but I have a feeling that this may be an inevitable guilty pleasure for those ones.