Back in the good ol' days of summer 2001-- before Fab had Drew, before the Walkmen had Saturn, and before Interpol had ubiquity-- Arena Rock Recordings put out an ambitious double-cd comp titled, This Is Next Year: A Brooklyn-Based Compilation. It was bloated with 42 tracks of NYC's finest-- including Interpol, the Walkmen, and French Kicks-- alongside some damn fine songs from bands that ended up going nowhere. Their debuts would all come within a year of the compilation's release. Earlier in 2001, Britt Daniel's impeccable pop urbanities poured forth from the heart of Dub's Country on Spoon's Girls Can Tell. And of course, autumn birthed the unholy hell of Strokes hype/backlash.
Over the next year or four, it seemed like every band on earth had a brooding frontman, clever get-ups, and catchy, 80s-inspired hooks. Even an "American Idol" champ is churning out moody guitar pop these days, and it, uh, isn't that bad (cough). Into this already exploded, declared dead, re-imagined, and revived pop scene sprouts Robbers On High Street's Tree City, full of songs that could have easily fit or faded into the mix on many of those 2001 releases. Someone should tell them to borrow from older, or at least more obscure, sources.
Most of Tree City sounds lifted from Britt Daniel's songbook. By that, I don't mean it sounds somewhat like it. I mean, it sounds like they stole the tapes from Britt's house and scribbled their name over his. Does Daniel live on High Street? That would make sense. Otherwise, it's hard to believe that a band, even relative newcomers, would be so blatant about borrowing ideas. Aren't New Yorkers cagier than that? But they present a pretty striking facsimile, albeit with the expected loss of definition and detail.
Singer Ben Trokan Single White Female's it throughout, knocking the dust off Daniel's weary loverboy rasp and cribbing notes from scratched-out lyric sheets. Trokan and his mates do such a fine rendition that, at first, it's easy to pretend it is a new Spoon record. Their Stella-soaked piano pop bounces and shakes where it should, with a few idiosyncratic touches that keep things interesting on certain numbers, like the horn section on "Spanish Teeth" or dancy-slappyhands on "Amanda Green". "Beneath the Trees" even threatens to carve out a unique path with its breathy ooh's and la's and Trokan's thrusts into falsetto. It's the clearest indication that ROHS have a chance if they're willing to trust their songwriting and ability a bit more the next time out.
Elsewhere, the boys make sure to let you know that they like other New York bands, too. "Love Underground" is the Strokes sans a lifetime of listless entitlement, except that's what everyone loves to hate about the Strokes. The Walkmen get doppelganged on "Killer Bees", on which Trokan lets his couplets trail off like he's about to fall over a la Leithauser, while the band swings away at their instruments in the middle of an empty concert hall.
Tree City is a highly listenable album a couple times through, and I'm sure there are a few fellows in Brooklyn, or Manhattan, blushing at its imitations. But, in a city stacked to the exposed rafters with talented bands, Robbers On High Street will not have long to figure out whether they want to be footnotes or headlines. If they decide on footnotes, here's a suggestion for the title to their follow-up, Kill The Room On Fire With Arrows.
