New York City is the home base of the feverish three piece known as Robbers On High Street. When their second album Grand Animals floated to the top of The Tripwire’s stack, we totally balked at its conspicuous elegance as if some impassioned piece of magnetic rump had cleverly caught our cautious eye. This lucent crew of silvery boys began thieving the hearts of industry and underground heads in 2002, knocking out their premiere EP Fine Lines in 2004 followed by their debut bang Tree City in 2005, both on New Line Records. So after looking at the sparkling new offering from Robbers as if it were a present wrapped and waiting to have its glittery paper ripped to shreds, we ultimately tore the seal off and spiritedly dove into the aberrant land inhabited by an entire new species of Grand Animals.
This remarkable sophomore album overflows with a mountainous landslide of unfathomable cool so powerful and majestic that all you can do is grab your favorite pitcher and let it fill it to the top. At times the distinguished flow spins through Supergrass or Spoon territory with singer Ben Trokan’s raspy murmur echoing Royston Langdon from Spacehog or Thom Yorke having a “Nice Dream.”
“The Fatalist” could be the opening song for the title sequence of the next James Bond 007 film where Daniel Craig and his rippling muscles burst the innocent buttons off his custom fit tuxedo shirt at the sight of a smoke colored silhouette dancing and twirling around the salacious secret agent before he orders his traditional martini, shaken not stirred.
“Crown Victoria” sounds like The Smiths being flown to planet Stardust where all of the painted faced kids screech high falsetto backup vocals while banging their kooky tambourines and shaking their glamorous asses until The Partridge Family bus brings the entire creep clique home for some much needed rest.
“Kick ‘Em In The Shins” is an absolutely impeccable groove that reminds us when you’re a jet you’re a jet to the end, and if you can’t walk down a city sidewalk with a switchblade and a comb in your back pockets, snapping to the beat of your shined shoed feet, looking like a million bucks on any given day, then maybe you shouldn’t be living in the Big Apple you little country boy, why don’t you take your trashy heap of rural rubbish back to the mosquito sticks, bitch!
Produced by Italian composer Daniele Luppi, Grand Animals is sparkly and polished and savory. Luppi’s delicate production is cleaner than a newborn’s chubby butt. The dazzling pickpockets, even with their dainty keys, dynamic strings and immeasurable zeal are possibly still too cool for us to thoroughly respect and like. When the homecoming king wins the championship rings in football, basketball, baseball, then marries the hottest princess on campus while still being a super nice guy who always takes the time to personally ask who your day is going behind his devastating smile full of pure kindness and beauty, its extremely difficult to hate that fucker’s guts for being anything but picture perfect.
“The Fatalist”
“Crown Victoria”
