By Andrew Darden • Aug 8th, 2008 • Category: Music, The Daily Dic
I’m crazy for rock music with dance beats. Every band at one point or another has employed the Kick-Hat-Snare-Hat trick, most notably Franz Ferdinand on every song they’ve ever made (give or take a few). The beauty of it is, I never tire of the rhythm; every time I hear it my foot starts tapping, and my hands instinctively grab two pencils to drum along with. Of course it helps when the rest of the music is good, you can’t found a band on a sweet dance beat alone - believe me, I’ve tried.
That’s where bands like San Francisco’s The New Up come in. With the classic dance beat (plus tambourine) to drive the song and psychedelic alt-rock soul to carry the rest, The New Up easily make for a band worth your ear for at least the time it takes to play through their new EP Broken Machine (about 25 minutes).
As much as I emphasize the dance beat, the rest of the EP has more variety, although the entire thing is oddly reminiscent of the good-ol-days of alt-rock, especially bands like The Pixies and The Smashing Pumpkins. Despite the darker leanings of the distorted guitars, like alt-rock heroes of past, The New Up never fail to create catchy pop melodies that are just begging to be sung along with (think “Waves of Mutilation”). Of course, further reflection yields the surprising difference from the obvious alt-rock comparisons, mostly due to the band’s casual psychedelic tendencies. I’ll let you do the further reflection on your own though.
Have a listen to “Top Of The Stairs”, the song that has the dance beat that got me all excited earlier in this post, right after the jump.
Tunes:
The New Up - “Top of the Stairs”
Info:
Broken Machine is out August 12, 2008.
