There's this whole cadre of bands over in the UK walking through the world at 45 degrees, rubbing sleep from their groggy eyes, and bagging birds at a staggering rate. They're plug-in comers to the Brit-Pop oracle, though they claim no allegiance to the genre, and have as much Blur in their britches as they do crusty Levellers. Operators like The Mountaineers, The Beta Band, we're talking about here; Super Furry Animals, too, those wacko Welshmen who nimbly sidestep failure while spending too much money. And now Athlete comes walking down the same meandering trail with Vehicles & Animals, a full-length cobbled in part from past singles and EPs.
As evidenced by this debut, Athlete enjoy removing the connective tissue in a song, so that Joel Pott's drowsy, accented Malkmus impersonation can flap untethered over slippery guitar hooks and assorted electronic splooge. "One Million"'s rhythms shift suddenly from loping organic percussion into a programmed static bump; "Beautiful" flits between clicky, pocket-size verses and big soaring choruses, and treats the whole lot with a recording of Wish You Were Here played backwards.
Of course, America has its own crazy diamonds, and Athlete's heard them, too. Their heads bob to the established tenets of the American indie electronica movement, as well as Soft Bulletin psychedelia. "You Got the Style" happily references softly doting rock chorusing, the slickness of 80s English pop, and that country's fickle climate, while "Salvador" is an inviting opening singalong of chiming guitars and natty scarves blowing fancily in a gentle breeze. The latter is also the closest approximation of what no one's been waiting for, but most everyone will secretly love-- a Super Furries-style cover of Avril Lavigne's "Complicated".
"Everybody wants to be part of the rock scene," Pott declares in "Westside", and there he is, defending Vehicles' more blatant appropriations. But perhaps he drifts into daydream then, and peers into his neighbor's ear: "You raise the tempo in the disco/ As you make this place your own." It's the sort of line that gets paunchy Bridget Jones types and the moon-faced men that love them very excited, because it invites everyone to the arty party. In fact, most of the album does, remaining fashionably idiosyncratic even as it keeps the accessibility altimeter level on the horizon; for all its pristinely damaged production and implications of music fan snobbery, "Shake Those Windows" is close to the pink-palmed mainstream pop of Stereophonics.
Maybe the band knew we'd be growing tired with them by mid-album, and looking for a reason to hate, since the midpoint title track really yanks the space hippie heartstrings. "There are moments of escape for every one of us/ And the beauty in the times that we create," Pott whispers over xylophone tinkles, and relates the album's title as a child's artistic escape from loneliness, and perhaps abuse. Simplistic and blatant, but full of meaning over the modified lullaby arrangement, the track accesses the warm/fuzzy humanism of Wayne Coyne.
The feelings conveyed are certainly real, but the organi-tronic flower power flow on display here is hardly unique to Athlete. It's actually preached by most of the band's UK USB hippie peer group (all of whom must count Coyne an earthly saint). It's all about finding the friendly turtles at the end of the druggy rainbow, yet, since no one's in a hurry to get there, the songs loop along with space between the beats and guitarists who still seem to be learning their craft. "Give it up/ Lift your hands/ Everybody," Athlete urges at the end of Vehicles & Animals, and there's a good chance we will, at least until the next batch of happy pills fall from the fluffy clouds. Look, kids, a centaur with a laptop!
