Astralwerks
2004
The Concretes
About This Album
Four years after their wonderful EP collection Boy, You Better Run Now was released by the star-crossed indie imprint Up Records (whose founder, Chris Takino, died of leukemia shortly after Boy, You Better Run Now's release), the Concretes return with The Concretes, their proper full-length debut and first album for Astralwerks. Because of the somewhat dodgy distribution of the singles and EPs that came after Boy, You Better Run Now, The Concretes might sound like even more of a departure from the band's early work to stateside Concretes fans. The spare, spry indie pop of the group's first releases has been replaced by a sugar-coma maximalism, overflowing with horns, strings, harps, and mandolins. "You Can't Hurry Love" and "Diana Ross" -- a relentlessly sweet and more than slightly druggy-sounding song about the diva's hit "Love Hangover" that actually approximates a love hangover more than Ross' song ever did -- suggest a Supremes fetish, while "New Friend"'s foggy, chiming charm nods to the Velvet Underground's "Sunday Morning." Actually, Motown lushness meets Velvets narcotic calm is a fairly apt summary of The Concretes' aesthetic, and when it works, it really works.
Track List (try tracks 1,2,3,5,6 and 8)

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