I don't know which is a sadder stab at provocation-- adopting Osama Bin Laden rhetoric as your band name or adopting EMF as your go-to touchstone. Take your pick, but as the conflicting album title suggests, this British quartet certainly loves offering up gauche material and immediately negating it with the irony card. All the classic dance-rock trappings are here-- chameleon vocals, Cure shoutouts, klutzy synthesizers-- each glazed in glam-rock flair and Killers-grade pedigree. Problem is, Infadels practically grabbed the worst of all worlds. As songwriters, they resemble the Cure only rhythm-deep, and their rigid ditties lack the over-the-topness enjoyed by some of their more dramatic and committed peers.
Thematically, the album reads pretty transparent. A quick glance at the tracklist reveals the intersecting threads of romance and modernity; frontman and John Malkovich clone Bnann opines over "Love Like Semtex" the "Girl Who Speaks No Words" when he's not bellyaching over "Reality TV" and "Stories From the Bar". However, all yammering aside, the Infadels still grate on a musical level. Carefree single "Can't Get Enough" practically boasts its own appeal, though Bnann's Brandon Flowers aping doesn't quite register as infectiously as he would like to think. Instrumentally, these guys are all over the place, updating anyone from Peter Gabriel to the Fall into a slickly produced mass of 80s kitsch. Unfortunately, too many basslines stall, too many synth melodies taper off, and too many drum beats grow stale right at the moment where a hook is needed. On "Girl That Speaks No Words", Bnann's sing-song verse flirts with catchiness only to abruptly hit the brakes before the track's anti-climactic chorus of ooh's and ah's. "Murder That Sound" hits a similar snag, investing heavily on its choppy Human League-style build only to plateau and retreat back into less-than-intriguing sci-fi ambience.
While spotty hooks occasionally bail out the Infadels' creative palsy, the album's more proactive numbers only add insult to this injury. "Reality TV" barks more than bites, with Bnann sardonically tossing out Social Commentary 101 lyrics like "the people on the screen are your family now" and "I wanna see people huggin' and kissin'." Similarly, opener "Love Like Semtex" should come across as a call to arms, but instead it stumbles on a lifeless groove, a veritable dud for a song about explosives and sex. Track after track similar problems arise, and the album never lives up to its edgy/party surface. At the end of the night, the Infadels' promising shindig serves more sliced vegetables and Kool-Aid than pretzels and beer, and judging by the album's conservative creativity, the band's parents were invited, too.
