Javelin: No Mas (Luaka Bop)

 |   |  1 min read

Javelin: We Ah Wi
Javelin: No Mas (Luaka Bop)

After internet chatter last year about how cool, kitschy and carefree this now Brooklyn-based duo of George Langford and Tom Van Buskirk (and friends) were for their loose borrowings from all parts of pop history (cheap Farfisa pop, reductive disco, New Wave bubblegum) on their widely circulated demos (Jamz n Jemz), you hoped they would step up on their debut album and deliver something as enjoyable, if more lo-fi/lowkey as the Mika or MGMT debuts. Even something as mediocre as the most recent Hot Chip album would be interesting.

But No Mas is as much a shapeless collage as their cover art: their bedroom electro-pop (On It On It, We Ah Wi, C Town) is weak; they think the Chipmunks provided relevant source material (the speed-up voices on Oh! Centra); and pulling in various instruments doesn't add much to wafer-thin ideas.

Better comes when they stab at straight-ahead lounge-pop (Tell Me What Will It Be? with its irritatingly enjoyable keyboards, Shadow Heart), but mostly this is for Hello Kitty kids who prefer cute to substance, and arrested adolescence to sitting at the table with grown-ups.

Langford is on record as saying the minute he starts on one idea he gets distracted and wants to work on another. Here's evidence he should take the medication because, fun though musical ADHD might be, it doesn't translate to a CD.

Share It

Your Comments

post a comment

More from this section   Music at Elsewhere articles index

THE BEATLES: GET BACK, THE ROOFTOP PERFORMANCE (2022): Reeling in the years

THE BEATLES: GET BACK, THE ROOFTOP PERFORMANCE (2022): Reeling in the years

Most serious Beatle-people will already have a bootleg copy of the Beatles' final live performance on the top of their Apple building in London on January 30, 1969. But its... > Read more

Silk Cut: Our Place in the Stars (digital outlets)

Silk Cut: Our Place in the Stars (digital outlets)

  In the jargon of classic British police dramas, Auckland singer/songwriter and guitarist Andrew Thorne of Silk Cut has “considerable prior form”.... > Read more

Elsewhere at Elsewhere

STEPPENWOLF: LIVE, CONSIDERED (1970): More but not necessarily better

STEPPENWOLF: LIVE, CONSIDERED (1970): More but not necessarily better

Of the very few people I know who have Steppenwolf albums, none have any other than the three I have owned: their self-titled debut (which featured Sookie Sookie, Born to be Wild and The Pusher);... > Read more

NESIAN MYSTIK INTERVIEWED (2003): For their people

NESIAN MYSTIK INTERVIEWED (2003): For their people

For Te Awanui Reeder and the rest of Nesian Mystik, yesterday was downtime and a chance to rest before opening for Duran Duran and Robbie Williams at Western Springs tomorrow. But there's... > Read more