Pandering And the Golddiggers-Early Album review

Like a rare star that falls out of the sky this album is unique and utterly amazing. Even though its in demo form, its already dressed in the finest fabrics sound has ever produced. It is beautiful, ground-breaking and revolutionary. The album, lets call it “Pandering” for it is yet to be given a name is glorious. This is pop music but I’ve heard no other act release a debut of this refined brilliance. There is amazing and there is amazing. And the “Pandering” falls squarely within in the latter slot. In fact they create their own slots. They are beyond categories, labels and genres. Into the beyond they fly and it is amazing to watch and hear them cruise into the hinterland of a revolutionary soundscape.

Pandering Theme

They have their own theme. How many acts construct these days? Not many. As they ply their name over and over the listener becomes ever aware that they’re listening to something out of this world.

Anymore

The first proper full-length song on the album. Let me just say its incredibly hard to review something that is so unique and so new for its so in a field of its own that it refuses any comparison to anything. Anymore ignores all of my attempts to say “it sounds like this” as there is nothing that comes close. In the UK there is this award called the Mercury Music Prize that always goes to acts I’d call pretty distant and disconnected. Especially from the realm of pop! In fact, it is never given to a pop act. Ever. Well, Anymore could be the track that secures that that could change.

The Tower One

This is a radical overview of Snaps "The Power". The vocals are so impressive, the sample barely grapples with the bands massive capacity to own the original mix of the song. Slowly but surely this cover stamps out any memory of the classic house hit single.

Come Play

A beautiful break in the album that illustrates the wonderful vocals of the three. The singers own voices are as desired, distinct and glistening as Cinderella’s glass slipper. It also fits together as neatly and naturally.

Disco Bloodbath

You can already hear this on their myspace. This is what I previously said of Disco Bloodbath: Its an utter polemic of pop songs. How camp is the line "pump up your shot gut and douse me with glitter"? These are what pop dreams are made of.

Riddle

This starts with a single piano and absolutely beautiful vocals from all the three of them. Riddle is about the “King of all neon lights, who can look you in the eyes” and leans itself to a post-modern choral chant. This could be a pop version of Umberto Eco’s breakout book In The Name Of The Rose. Riddle haunts and promises something deliverance. Its finished off with a unrelenting cello. Freaky.

Stone Cold Lover

Backed with a tribal beat and organic drums, the stripped tension of “Stone Cold Lover” emerges as a soulful wander into stories about the Other who refuses to recognize you. As such, you desire the one thing that refuses to witness your requisite need. Scarce in its production one hears the vulnerability which drives home the message of the song.

Parisian Café

You can already hear this on their myspace. This is what I previously said of Parisian Café: Their myspace player leads into the song Parisian Cafe. Now, ahem. This is glorious. Its like a beautiful drop of sheer eternal happiness. In Parisian Cafe, the group provide one of the most amazing artifacts of music available on myspace. Parisian Cafe is blissfully camp without throwing down electro baselines. It is magically Mozart, beautifully Bach, and of course totally Tchaikovsky! Right until the end. What is most striking is the fact that the songs are demo's. One is gobsmacked.

Sundrops

Amazing. Absolutely amazing. For some reason Sundrops takes me back to the summers of my teenage years. When it was all GSCE’s, Grange Hill, Smash Hits, Betty Boo (“Let Me Take You There”) and holidays to Spain. Despite being slightly retro Pandering serves up a slice of rnb and post-modern pop garage that secures this band as the most groundbreaking band to come out of the UK in recent years. Sundrops is like winter sunrise over the coasts of Spain, Portugal and Italy; nothing but pure warmth.

Galileo

You can already hear this on their myspace. Here, Pandering and the Golddiggers construct a folk song made for the tribal population of Saturn. Probably. Subdued, guitar driven and a subtle release compared to the other tracks on the demo album. I’d love to hear Galileo re-emerge as another epic like that of Parisian Café. I just think it deserves more. Its beautiful as it stands but the tension that remains so contained, so deep and so stoic that you sort of wish some of that to be come undone by a massive string section.

Bite Down Hard

Wow. This is rude. Very rude. The garage sound of Sundrops returns on Bite Down Hard. Everything in the title explains what this track is truly about. I like it though. There is a beautiful clarity and control to Bite Down Hard which is a total contradiction to the message of songs. Nothing short of a climax! When she eventually does ‘arrive’, the beats go wild and suddenly a 2008 rival to Je T' Aime Moi Non Plus emerges. Excellent!

And, in conclusion

“Pandering” is a collection of songs that might change, alter and so forth on its eventual release. However as is stands, it emerges as a real contender for all the music prizes come 2009-10. Yes, the really serious ones. This is an album that refuses catagorization and boldly forces its way into the future despite being created very much in the present. There is no one out there doing something like Pandering and the Golddiggers-pop has never sounded so good or groundbreaking. Amazing!

Details

The Pandering and the Golddiggers are currently on tour with Alphabeat. You can catch them in London tomorrow night and Wednesday 29th of October at the Shepherds Bush Empire.

Myspace