There are two situations in which you'll say a band is your favorite. The first is when someone asks, and you think about it, and you say something boring and realistic like the Clash. The other is when the music is actually playing, live or recorded, and it just comes out: This is the greatest thing ever.
At their best, Stereo Total are that second type of band. Writing about this duo makes them sound complicated-- part synth kitsch, part garage band, part Gainsbourg/Bardot revivalists-- but the truth is that most everything they write is simple enough for the two of them to play on their own. The music's like a cross between a thrift shop and the Apple store: Just a jumble of "amateurish" pop-song trinkets, stylish cast-offs, and entertaining gadgets. They're like Saint Etienne, except French and German and funny and horny and trapped in your garage with a case of cheap beer and a shitty drum kit.
Do the Bambi is their sixth full-length, and it's as much a turning point as a drop-off in quality. Toy with anything-goes aesthetics for long enough and you're going to develop some ambition. That's what you hear on this one: a slinkier, more sophisticated duo, one that makes little motions out into complexity instead of coasting on sheer verve.
Over the course of 19 tracks, results are maddeningly mixed. This album, even more than their others, is like a cheap pinata: A lot of candies come out, and a few of them are bound to be stale yellowish things that don't taste like butterscotch. The treats, though, are fascinating. "Babystrich" has Brezel Göring singing noir falsetto disco that nudges toward Scissor Sisters territory; "Hungry!" goes back to FraxE7oise Cactus for the old pop charge, an addictive chipmunk hook, and a lyric that conflates hunger and loneliness (extra points for "me so hungry"). And it's there, around the center of the album, that some of the old verve returns-- like on the terrific "Tas de Tôle", which gets together some of the cut-and-paste "dance music" euphoria of their last few records.
So more slink, less chirpy pop; decent highs and throw-away lows. There are surely 15 minutes of Terrific in here, and maybe 30 of Okay, all capped off by an acidic synth-and-vocal cover of "Chelsea Girls". Nothing to get excited about, but they just might be inching their way someplace interesting-- Stereo Total less as stylish curiosities and more as contenders.
