January 14, 2006
Rock Review | Morningwood and We Are Scientists
Two Bands With One Message: Let's Dance[/b]
By KELEFA SANNEH, New York Times
Right now, EMI Music is promoting two New York bands hoping to ride danceable rock into the mainstream. Both released new albums on Tuesday, and both played the Bowery Ballroom this week. On Wednesday night it was Morningwood, the brash and shameless female-led group that just released its self-titled debut album through Capitol Records, an EMI subsidiary. And on Thursday night it was We Are Scientists, the sly and shameless all-male trio that just released its debut album, "With Love and Squalor," through Virgin Records, another EMI subsidiary.
What does Morningwood sound like? Mainly, it sounds like a major-label conference room. You can almost hear the executives chattering away in the background, reassuring one another that no group with loud guitars and a guy who used to be in the Wallflowers and strutting rhythms and lyrics about how N-N-New York girls have a-a-a-attitude - no group like that could possibly fail, right? Right? This is a band that's supposed to be lots of fun, and if you forget, the members are happy to remind you how much fun you're supposed to be having.
On Wednesday night, Chantal Claret, the lead singer, worked overtime to entertain the executives and the fans; it seemed she was hoping for a sea of fists in the crowd, though she got only a puddle. The band has one really good song, "Nth Degree," a disco-rock confection that lodges itself firmly in the brain before the second chorus even arrives; it sounded pretty good on Wednesday, though it sounds even better on record, with electronic effects on the vocals to make the song sound that much smoother.
But the Morningwood album also includes more than a few songs that are unnecessarily, even perversely, awful. The next record executive to complain about slumping CD sales should be forced to spend the day playing "Babysitter" on repeat, listening to Ms. Claret moan, "Your mama, mama, mama shouldn't let me baby-sit." At the Bowery Ballroom, she worked overtime to entertain: she brandished a baton; she climbed up to the balcony; during "Take Off Your Clothes," she invited a suspiciously well-prepared woman from the audience to strip onstage. When Ms. Claret sang she often rolled her eyes, and she wasn't the only one.
The members of We Are Scientists are just as eager to let listeners know they don't take themselves too seriously: on their CD cover, they are all holding kittens in front of their faces. The music finds a comfortable spot between the neo-wave band the Killers and the disco-punk band the Rapture, all spiky rhythms and yelpy vocals. And while Morningwood took the stage after a long recorded fanfare, the members of We Are Scientists just ambled on and, after a mumbled hello, started playing "This Scene Is Dead," which reduces a complicated night to a pithy refrain: "The night is young/ I'm blacking out/ But it's been fun."
Only 37 minutes long, "With Love and Squalor" is a modest little album that delivers on its promises: it's full of neatly turned-out songs, familiar-sounding but pretty sharp all the same. On Thursday the band played nimbly, propelled by Michael Tapper's skittering drums. During a guitar interlude in "Can't Lose," Chris Cain took a minute to fix a problem with his bass. Keith Murray, the guitarist and lead singer, kept playing but watched his bandmate's progress. "Time is running short," he said with a faint smile, and Mr. Cain finished just in time.
Near the end came one of the best songs, "It's a Hit." It's not, thank goodness, a smarmy joke about the record industry; it's a half-remembered story about a drunken encounter. "This was going so well, but I don't know what I did," Mr. Murray wailed. "All I really can tell is, I've been hit, I've been hit, I've been hit." While Morningwood tries frantically to start a party, the members of We Are Scientists act as if they're already at one, and almost ready to leave.
