May. 26, 2010 - Issue #762: Timeland
Champ
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Tokyo Police Club {recordings_bands_mg} Champ {/recordings_bands_mg}
Dine Alone, 2010
3
On Toronto-based perpetual-buzz machine Tokyo Police Club's latest album, Champ, the group finally begins to shed the "too green" label it's been saddled with since the release of its first EP, 2006's A Lesson in Crime. With plenty of the songs surpassing the three-minute mark, the album is practically an opus by Tokyo Police Club standards, and with a newfound handle on the power of dynamics, the songs no longer feel as much like single-minded outbursts but are instead given room to breathe so that nuance and tonal diversity can creep in.Where A Lesson in Crime focused outward in its sci-fi lyrics and images of an apocalyptic future, the group's debut LP, 2008's Elephant Shell, looked inward, reaching back into the imagery of youth to craft a melancholic journey suffused with the sweet sadness of growing up. Champ continues this theme, but instead of miring itself within the emotions, it looks back with fondness. Ultimately, Champ is a lot more lyrically exuberant than its immediate precursor. A song like "Breakneck Speed" encompasses the shift in outlook towards youth with lyrics like, "Super fun / At the movies drunk and young ... but the big bad years are done."
The album also gets away from the flat slickness of Elephant Shell. The dynamics help a lot in this regard, as do some smaller touches like the consciously sloppy ending to the song "Favourite Colour," which allows an in-studio conversation to bleed purposefully into the track. Whether or not a cynic would view such a move as calculated—and it is—it nevertheless injects a little life into what is otherwise a carefully produced outing; there are no clanky notes left in for colour, nor any moments where the vocals aren't filtered just right.
Champ also expands the band's tonal palette. Whereas many songs on Elephant Shell could have been stripped down for performance on an acoustic guitar—as evidenced by the myriad of YouTube videos of singer Dave Monks doing just that—"Bambi" is a fully electronics-driven banger. In fact it's the synths that really get a workout on Champ. Always a large part of the sound, keyboards had previously fulfiled more of an atmospheric role whereas on Champ they drive more melodies and making themselves indispensible.
One thing not changed about Tokyo Police Club in all of the apparent growth is the band's sense of genre confusion. Jumping from the synth-tinged folk which opens "Favourite Food" to the electronica of "Bambi" to the exclamatory indie of "Breakneck Speed" to the nearly-out-of-place-but-not-really bubblegum square dance of "End of a Spark," the album couldn't be accused of sticking to the same worn groove for any amount of time. At this point in the band's career, however, maybe it's time to consider the possibility that this kind of split-personality songwriting might just be what this band is all about. It's not still trying to find out what its voice is: this level of complexity is its voice. V
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