Eddie Argos is out to save rock and roll. Here’s why:
Armed with little more than a decent speaking voice, an album with
only three songs passing the three-minute mark, and a complete
disregard for what qualifies music as “good” anymore,
he has taken the pretentiousness of many of today’s best
artists and shoved it right back in their faces.
From front to back, “Bang Bang Rock & Roll” is
akin to being slapped in the face repeatedly. Guitars, simple and
decisive, cut through the mix with an energy that nearly equals
that of the band’s wily singer. Argos declares and yells his
way through the album with more earnestness than a television
evangelist and enough confidence to admit in the album’s
first two minutes that he can’t really sing.
“Formed A Band,” the opening track as well as the
band’s first single, offers a pretty good idea of what Art
Brut is all about: quirky British humor, musical brevity and honest
self-awareness. “We’re gonna write the song that makes
Israel and Palestine get along,” Argos playfully states in
the song’s breakdown. His lyrical mischief continues on
tracks like “Bad Weekend,” in which he confesses,
“Haven’t read the NME in so long, don’t know what
genre we belong!”
The majority of the album, however, focuses on everyday sort of
topics. Argos never ceases to make these accounts interesting,
interjecting verses like “I’ve seen her naked!
Twice!” or recounting, right down to the exact second, the
last time he saw his true love.
“Bang Bang Rock & Roll” is refreshing and fun, a
welcome respite from a genre of music that takes itself too
seriously. With the album finally available in the United States,
Argos’ desire to “strip naked to the waist and ride my
Harley Davidson up and down Sunset Strip” would be neither
unwelcome nor surprising.