Lovepark :: "How Do I See?"

Riding a warm and sparse guitar line into a falsetto chorus, Lovepark craft an extremely promising first 7" single, "How Do I See?" The band hails from Brighton, the place that Kele Okereke once encouraged us all to go for the weekend, a cultural mix between the rough ex-fishing towns that exist everywhere from Marseilles to New Bedford with a side of the devastating vacation-blight of Coney Island. "How Do I See?" exhibits some of this same dualism, the first two hooks phrased as "Because it feels good" and "How does it feel now?". The arrangement slows and expands around the central theme of how anyone ever manages to move forward and on. It is the kind of question that can be of aching importance when you are from a place most people just visit, where their transience is your permanence. But this is no blue-collar anthem, no silly "Downeaster Alexa" with a British accent. Rather, the band sounds careful and deliberate as they explore juxtaposed elements like, "in the middle of the night, a thousand scorching suns", a song about the desires to leave cast against the realities of leaving, the brightness of midnight sunshine.

The Hundred In The Hands :: "Dressed In Dresden"

Remember 2005? Remember when you heard Bloc Party's "Banquet" the first time? Wow, right? Angular, uncompromising, and entirely aggressive.

This isn't that. But, hit "save as" and then press "open" and you'll find they do share a guitar riff. Close your eyes and ignore the growling synth-hum at the bottom of the mix. The guitars are entirely Kele and Bloc Party. It is nearly identical, like that girl who looks a little like someone you used to date, and it would be creepy if it weren't so familiar. Replace the vocals with a more hard-nosed Jenny Lewis and a sing-song final movement and you've got The Hundred In The Hands.

Where does that leave us? At the same derivative train station we've been held in since the second cave painter looked to his left and thought, "I wouldn't have thought of that ... but I'm pretty sure I can follow the design." And so began a tradition of artistic borrowing. Put into my own words? We didn't start the fire. It was always burning, since the world's been turning.

That about sums it up.

Listen :: The Hundred In The Hands - "Dressed In Dresden"