Playlouder - Music is the Network

At this rate. in five years time, bands are likely to be yanked off the conveyor belt of stardom by the crooked cane of popularity mere seconds are they form. For those about to rock, here's a few pointers. Colourful Life was released last month, I think. Possibly, the month before. Maybe even last year, but life is so extraordinarily speedy-fast and explosive and technicolour, that nobody even noticed. The band probably didn't even notice. Maybe their mums noticed, but even they probably got alerts from Limewire that their own childrens music was rough and ready to file-share. They probably even uploaded the motherfucker. So unspectacular, and ironically drab was the arrival of Colourful Life into the nations hearts, that I doubt anyone would have done a double take if it hadn't turned up at all

Which is, of course, a shame, but then this artefact of averageness from pre-teen bog-dwellers Cajun Dance Party, is so massively, and excrutiatingly boring, there's little really to indicate the wet fart of a fanfare it's generally received. Problems? Their literary, pop-savvy many-tentacled peers pumped their wares out quicker, and they were good. Easy answer there. What's more exciting is that nobody hates them either, despite singer Daniel Blumberg's slapped-arse haircut, honky nasal twang, or their incessant knack of having their shoes sicked on by Peaches Geldof and bafflingly sounding like their enjoy it too. Nobody could muster any hatred because natch, 'Konk' came out. But there's the sweetness in the dark; although the previously mentioned Kooks album is predictably, worse than death, Colourful Life isn't anywhere near that bad.

Cast you mind back, if you dare, to August last year, where Amylase, the first proper single, and most noticeable track here, was all over the place. 6 Music had it A+++ listed, so it was played approximately every third song, H+M had it on their instore playlist, and eveyone did a double take because, despite previous convictions, Amylase was totally fucking BRILLIANT. With a capital everything. I'd just got dumped, I was for various hideous reasons, staying in a Hotel in Bournemouth directly opposite the ugly ice rink, and spending my evening surrounded by smugness and parks and hot air balloons, and spent most of the time listening to Amylase, and it was precisely the sort of ham-fisted sloppily awesome slap-bang indie late summer singalong you, yes you, though died the second Good Enough faded out. But no, Amylase is, was, and wil forever be, one of the great singles of the latter half of this decade. "Amylase will dry up the plaster" indeed. Brilliant. The other eight tracks on show here, are remarkable only in that they can be separated succinctly into the ones that sound like obvious singles (the obvious singles, Race, and the title track, both of which sound like crap versions of Amylase) and the filler, of which there is six entire songs of.

Anyone who has had the serious misfortune to hear any of Cajun Dance Party's demos, which I have, yet can't reasonably explain why, will know, the original versions of each track on this album are utterly hopeless, drivelling turds floating in a goldfish tank of cantankerous filth, so it's a million and one credits to Bernard Butler, whose polishing skills can once again be registered top notch, but whilst your Duffy's and Black Kids might stand out from the crowd by being a soul-styled Bonnie Tyler or fuckarsed Shout Out Louds streaky-piss tribute act, Cajun Dance Party offer little in terms of imagination that some wishy-washy hand-claps and lumbering strings will ever make amends for. Even the cute "1-2-3-4" that opens Amylase stutters under the contrived circumstances, which is a shame. 

The end product is alas, a forgettable album, released by a forgettable band in a forgettable climate. The strange thing is, Cajun Dance party, for myself at least, should remain one of the greatest one-hit-wonders of recent years. Only without the hit.