It's hard not to notice the Chalets' elaborately conceived packaging. The Dublin boy/girl quintet's leading ladies, singer/keyboardists Caiomhe "Pony" Derwin and Paula "Pee Pee" Cullen, make their own playful costumes. Their album artwork is airplane-themed, down to a pair of aviator sunglasses dangling from the pilot's shirt pocket that doubles as lyric sheet holder. Most rock's post-Nevermind austerity notwithstanding, stage presentations and album covers have long made up a meaningful part of pop fanhood.
The songs should still come first. The Chalets remember this guideline only infrequently on their debut album, Check In, which finally arrives on these shores nearly two years after receiving generally glowing notices abroad. The band's chunky guitar pop and shrill electro-punk does leave a short-lived sugar buzz now and then, but it often relies on heavy-handed writing about a stereotyped battle of the sexes. Yeah, kinda like that new sitcom on CBS.
Or, more frequently, Grease. Several tracks on Check In vie unsuccessfully to displace 1998's "Grease Megamix" as the most popular boy/girl karaoke song no boy ever picks. "You're making us wanna unbuckle our trousers," the Chalets guys hoot over muted power chords on silly opener "Theme from Chalets", as the gals retort in cutesy B-52s harmony, "You're making us wanna tighten our skirts." The song's hook bears an uncanny resemblance to the one from Smash Mouth's "Walkin' on the Sun". On "Love Punch", the sexes fight it out with rape jokes and Presets-like synths, while "Two Chord Song" sees the lads joining a band with the ladies-- they quickly become vapid one-hit video stars. Not that easy, is it?
Check In shows the most promise when the Chalets' male and female members all sing together, rather than apart. Simple new wave tune "No Style" achieves a California glow that helps more Mars v. Venus lyrics about "staring at her ass" pass as witty. To be sure, only a thin line separates this track or oddball hookup thriller "Nightrocker" from more mediocre singles like the chugging "Sexy Mistake". Thing is, for all the focus on concept, the songs here frequently wind up sounding commercial-jingley rather than catchy, with lyrics more unremarkable than universal ("Everybody wants to feel the machine/ Everybody, yeah, you know what I mean"). Fans will obsess over packaging, but most of us have to fall in love with the music first.
