Late of the Pier
My Rating: 4/5

Label: Zarcorp
Website: http://www.lateofthepier.com/
MySpace: http://www.myspace.com/lateofthepier
Purchase Album: Late of the Pier - Fantasy Black Channel

British group, Late of the Pier’s debut album, Black Fantasy Channel is fantastic. Their album has a nice blend of electronics and technical skill. Their instrumental track “V W” really adds to their first full length LP, this one track I can listen to forever, it is quite amazing that this much noi-… excuse me, music, can come from four band members.

The track “The Bears are Coming” has a very unique sound, the blend of electronic tones and acoustic drums really makes a great combination. Their music video for this track is really quite wonderful as well.

The last couple tracks on this album bothered me, “Mad Dogs And Englishmen” and “Bathroom Gurgle”. “Mad Dogs And Englishmen” had an intro that was way too similar to that of Bloc Party, the first time I heard it I thought my iTunes went wacko and started playing a Bloc Party track, but all in all a pretty decent track.
“Bathroom Gurgle” didn’t seem to have anything going for it, it was either poorly produced, the singer had strep throat or they were attempting to cover a Kylie Minogue song.

All in all a great album and gets a rating of 4 out of 5 from me.

The group was recently featured on the September 13th 2008 issue of NME along with popular indie bands such as MGMT and Bloc Party.