For those of you following along at home, this is the debut from Melbourne's Bananagun. The debut album, that is. Which begs the question: Can they sustain the verve, wit, and fun of their earlier singles over the course of a full-length record? The answer, going by The True Story of Bananagun is a resounding "Yes!" The Full Time Hobby release drops on Friday and it's easily this week's most enjoyable new long-player.
"Bang Go The Bongos" kicks things off with a mix of Tropicália and funk, while the far better "People Talk Too Much" ups the funk quotient a bit, even adding in some splashes of mid-period Talking Heads to the overall vibe. Elsewhere, "Out of Reach" sounds a tiny bit like Broadcast, The Free Design, and Herb Albert, while "Freak Machine" edges closer to mid-Nineties Stereolab, the surfaces here bright and bubbly ones. Bananagun are, clearly, intent on mixing up about a dozen things at once and almost always the results are good ones.
If "Mushroom Bomb" and "Modern Day Problems" are topical and issue-centered, there's no danger of Bananagun becoming too serious with hooks this infectious and fun. These numbers near the end of The True Story of Bananagun modulate the pep sprinkled throughout the majority of these cuts just enough to suggest a semi-seriousness lurking beneath things here and I sort of dug that. The combination of the first half of this record with the last few numbers here gave every indication that Bananagun are only going to get better and better. And that's hard to believe considering how absolutely lovable the whole of this album is. If only there were any other current bands making indie this spry, this inventive, this musically witty!
The True Story of Bananagun is out on Friday via Full Time Hobby.
More details on Bananagun via the band's official Facebook page.
[Photo: Jamie Wdziekonski]