Playlouder - Music is the Network

Oh fuck it, I'm going straigt to hell without passing 'go' anyway, so I might as well hot-foot it for a fast-track ticket and avoid the queues umm-ing and ahh-ing over the inconsistencies of We Are Scientists: If 'Make Mistakes' isn't one of the best single released in the last few years, then I'm a straw hat chewing motherfucker. It's beyond irresitable, and almost threateningly perfect; it's got nearly everything, hideous plot-based-cum-guilty-concious bankrobbing theme in the verses, an insane angst-worn chorus, a throb of candy-covered syth polluting each chord change, and a video straight from the churn of a gimmick-savvy promo whizz, circa 1998. Despite this, there's a black cloud that follows the Wall of Sound quintet around like a three-legged, something that make them, well, totally embrassing, and it's hard to put your finger on it.

Trying to distance yourself from the persona and stigma attached to a three minute pop song is a hefty task, considering that in the five-minute window for a career-defining moment, the confinements of the single pales in massive insignificance to say, whether the guy who want to get accidentally pregnant by listened to it 35 times yesterday on last.fm, or whether the viral marketing campaign makes good blogging material or not, The Infadels, therefore, should be duely credited for producing in essence, a back-to-back album of potential singles, jazzed up with hooks, lines, and precious few sinkers. The pairing of Make Mistakes and Free Things For Poor as lead singles would have trailblazed this album several years ago, but hey, bald men in loud ties and sweat drenched middle aged five o' clock, so nobody gave two honks and two bullseye single become what they deserve to be; lost classics. It's fair to say the Infadels have a serious image crisis, sharing the 'token indie band on Wall of Sound' tag with Reverend and the Makers unfairly hucks them into the snakepit of laddish oaf-rock, and their tendancies to play every free toilet going and roll about in pigshit to give their music another pump on the airwaves unfairly gains the ignorant of the masses who find the idea of smoothing rough edges with a bit of effort in the studio an abhorrent trait, there's a saddening inevitability that The Infadels alienate half the people who should have their eyes opened to cheap pop thrills, purely by existing. Tough break.

So whilst their not an easy band to cuddle up with, taking apart the bare bones of Universe in Reverse, you've got a mighty fine hand to play with. None are bad, about three are worth treasuring, and the other seven are ready-to-wear fantastic, haughtily crafted songs that are frankly embarassingly passable, with a pleasingly dated approach to verse/chorus/verse/bridge/chorus/chorus on most tracks. Inventive it most certainly isn't, the closest to a revolution youll find here is the title track, which offers a side dish of slightly fewer bpms. But what it lacks by offering credibility in quality, it does throw you plenty of Wheatus-shaped big dumb catchy thrills. Frontman Bnann Watts, who has no qualms with serving up lyrics like "reflecting all the fireworks in my head" has an affectionate drawl which works an unobtrusive foreground; to often these disposable synthpop can be appropriately ruined by yelps, yawns and rumbling pigheadedness. This side of the coin, mind, works, and the lyrics, particularly on Free Things For People, which sounds like James at the Big Beat Boutique and bumbles around a ridiculous 'he said/she said polemic about.. haha! materialism! straight out of the late nineties - it even came attached to it's own marketing gimmick, in which the band threw a bunch of money out of an office window until they got stopped by the pigs. Sound familiar? This is just part of the refreshing nostalgia unexpectedly served up. 'Million Pieces' is another, for anyone who remembers when underachieving indie backs attempted terrible mawkish ballads, onto to find themselves unable to perform, and zig-zagging through panned down heartbreakers with terrible lyrics and phenomenal choruses instead. So yee-ha, for people wih no dignity, no friends, no desire to perform with any machismo playing cultural bingo or indie top trumps, this is perfect. If you're got any inkling telling you the Infadels are typically washed-out underhitting, falsified bellends, then think again, drop the gauntlet sonny, and learn to recognise a fucking tune when it slaps you round the face, Tango-ad synth pomp has never been so irrelevant.