Leeds-based 2-piece band
I Love Poland released their eponymous debut album on 2 October. This 6-track album is short and definitely sweet. The album has a touch of camp glam with the sweeping melodramatic vocals of Ziggy Stardust mixed with Nick Cave, mixes happy synths with dark-sounding vocals and truly works. There is even a hint of Bernard Butler in there, but without the depression that this sadly missed genius added to his musical masterpieces.
This album drew me in from the outset as the simple drum beat of
Ill kicked in. The recurring synth melody lulls the listener into both the song and the album, but it is the slightly haunting vocals that catch you. Just as you feel like closing your eyes and letting the song sweep you away it ends abruptly and brings you right back to reality. As the album moves on, it's easy to let the music wash away everything else from your head and take you somewhere away from reality. This music would fit in perfectly with the world created by Neil Jordan in
Breakfast On Pluto, a world of glamour edged with sadness.
I Love Poland are Ben on vocals and Chris on drum machine and synths, and the two are able to create complexity in their songs that will prevent boredom in listening to this album many times—and yet the clean sound that they produce is maintained throughout the album allowing the songs to mesh together seamlessly. The band are currently signed to Denial Records who were instrumental in helping to launch NME favourites,
Bloc Party.
Candy, the last song on the album, starts “Candy Cane I love you”—which I hope is not inspired by the Paul Walker monstrosity,
Joy Ride, particularly as this is my favourite song on the album. At just over 16 minutes in length, this is by no means an epic first release, but keeping it short was, for me, a good thing. There is no unnecessary padding in this album unlike so many others.
The band's MySpace page lists the band's influences. I am not sure I have ever seen a list of influences quite as lengthy as this but hell, why not add every band or artist that you have ever loved. Looking down the list and you will see many 80s synths bands and
I Love Poland certainly don’t hide that their sound is very much based on this decade, yet they still sound fresh and not like a misplaced cover band.
This is a band for whom I certainly recommend making the effort to visit their site or MySpace page and listening for yourself. There is some great music coming out of the Leeds area at the moment and
I Love Poland are no exception to this—I'm certainly tempted to see them band live if their tour brings them my way. There appears to be a buzz around this band and it is definitely deserved.
The album can be bought for the very reasonable price of £5.99
through their own site, ilovepoland.org, where details of their tours (sadly nothing in Glasgow at the moment) can also be found.
I like the sound of it and it was a nice little review. bravo!
