Elephant Shell

The debut of Tokyo Police Club is really inspiring

Canadian indie band with an interesting name Tokyo Police Club, consisting of vocalist and bassist Dave Monks, guitarist Josh Hook, keyboardist Graham Wright and drummer Greg Alsop began its existence in a basement where the guys played for fun, and the serious work started on city festival Pop Montreal, after which its has been invited to take part almost in every festival both in Canada and America. Releasing two EPs A Lesson in Crime and Smith in 2006 and 2007 respectively that got acclaimed by the critics Tokyo Police Club has finally recorded its first full-length album named Elephant Shell. Probably the collective has decided to stake at the quality as the medium track length on the record is two minutes and a half but this time is quite enough to appreciate the punk elements in a number of songs, the vocals far from bad and the musician's matched playing, which make the debut of Tokyo Police Club really inspiring.

On Elephant Shell the musicians demonstrate the maximum of their potentials

The formula Tokyo Police Club sticks to on Elephant Shell are capacious and mainly up-tempo tracks that let the musicians demonstrate the maximum of their potentials changing the rhythm and atmosphere all the time. The album opens with a short complicated composition Centennial on which the band is only warming up before a much more eclectic song In A Cave with a catchy chorus and drums that deserve praise. A sullen track Graves is an example of the band's black humor whereas Juno is one of the album's highlights with a memorable rhythm and a tune that causes reflection. The example of witty and really clever lyrics is song Tessellate that once again surprises with faultless drums and guitars. Yet the most interesting track has proved to be The Harrowing Adventures Of which starts as a lullaby and actually continues as one of the calmest tracks on the record with a triangle adding a certain charm to it. On Nursery Academy Dave gives his vocals full swing and presents us with an excellent performance of a complicated tune, while single Your English Is Good is refined with a choir singing of all the band members that makes one want to sing along with them and a great shouting chorus. The most unusual has become song Listen To The Math with multilayered drums that seem only to make the performance more difficult but the musicians do it perfectly well.

A great atmosphere, humor and complicated texts

Whatever you may say, there have always been and will be interesting artists and bands in Canada, and Tokyo Police Club is not an exception. Before becoming it the guys played in another band that was disbanded for reasons known to them only and obviously it was meant to be, otherwise we would not have heard the great music on Elephant Shell. It might be that Monks' vocals are not yet so perfect and he can grow more as an artist but even this immaturity plays into the band's hands. A raw, fresh and young sound of the Canadians got to the liking of the listeners on both sides of the Atlantic and many songs already are already played at parties, in homes, cars and speakerphones. The joyful songs' great atmosphere, humor and complicated texts in which one metaphor flows into another cannot but impress. Although it is rather hard to remember the tunes that are anything but simple at once each of the songs is interesting in its own way, therefore right after the album is over you want to listen to it from the start, and with each time you will like it more. Quite surely by the time the next album of Tokyo Police Club is ready the songs on Elephant Shell will definitely not start bothering you yet.