The Rascals-Rascalize-(Advance)-2008-DV8

Artist: The Rascals
Title: Rascalize
Label: Deltasonic
Genre: Indie
Bitrate: 196kbit av.
Time: 00:37:27
Size: 55.64 mb
Rip Date: 2008-06-14
Str Date: 2008-06-23

1. Rascalize 2:27
2. Out Of Dreams 3:10
3. Bond Girl 2:31
4. The Glorified Collector 2:55
5. Fear Invicted Into The Perfect Stranger 4:08
6. Does Your Husband Know That You're On The Run? 3:51
7. I'd Be Lying To You 3:00
8. Freakbeat Phantom 3:30
9. People Watching 2:24
10. Stockings To Suit 3:03
11. How Do I End This? 3:03
12. I'll Give You Sympathy 3:25

Release Notes:

Miles Kane’s bandmates must wonder whether to bless or curse
their frontman’s involvement with Alex Turner. While The Last
Shadow Puppets project has swamped their young band in more
attention than if they’d scaled Big Ben in Womble costumes,
they might also have cause to wish he’d hung onto a few of his
best ideas for them.

‘The Age Of The Understatement’ carefully balanced Kane’s love
of melodramatic, string-swept ‘60s chamber-pop with the
rough-edged, chunky bluster of post-Arctics indie. The
Rascals’ own debut, on the other hand, for all the Wirral
three-piece’s professed darkness and strangeness, is more
pragmatic than dramatic. As with many of the current crop of
everyman guitar bands (The Pigeons, The Twang, The Enemy),
there’s nothing that exciting either, nothing to really grasp
on to and love.

All the right references and some sonic tricks are present and
correct too, from the galloping psychobilly bassline of ‘Does
Your Husband Know You Are On The Run’ to the Johnny Kidd & The
Pirates slink and niggling guitar of ‘I’d Be Lying to You’.
These touches seem more like a decoration or diversions,
though, from a fairly standard, rollicking indie-rock that
sounds all too familiar, They owe more to the Monkeys than a
leg-up in terms of column inches, after all; it was a support
tour with the then-bright young hopes that inspired them to
snuff The Little Flames and form The Rascals, and there’s a
clear debt in their strutting basslines and sarky social
observation (“People-watching is one of my favourite ways to
pass the time” notes Kane on, er, ‘People Watching’).

In light of this, opening with ‘Rascalize’ a brass-necked
manifesto that leans heavily on The Beatles’ ‘Magical Mystery
Tour’, seems less than wise, Kane boasting, “All aboard for
the adventure”.
In truth they’re closer to Gerry & The Pacemakers than the Fab
father of weird-pop, or, in more modern terms, more The Zutons
than The Coral. The latter is a name they’ll get sick of
hearing, most often in conjunction with the words “poor” and
“man’s” as The Rascals lack the inherent drive towards the odd
of Skelly and co – their carefully placed peculiarities are
more knowing allusion than genuine sonic exploration. They’re
actually at their best when most direct and unaffected, as on
the genuinely thrilling grungey snarl of ‘I’ll Give You
Sympathy’. One musical influence that’s noticeably less
present is Kane’s beloved Scott Walker; yes, there’s
intrigue-laden lyrical tableau of ‘Bond Girl’ but you can’t
imagine the man himself giving them more than a few seconds
before breaking the CD and combining the shards with squirrel
intestines to create some crazy new instrument. Perhaps less
time spent constructing solid, unremarkable riffs and more
spent testing out the percussive qualities of chunks of dead
rodent