Virgin Records
2003
Ima Robot (Explicit)
About This Album
As nu-metal and the last vestiges of grunge have waned, the popular embrace of "real" or "garage" rock has caused an uptick of ultrafashionable musicians who artfully subtract the more inaccessible parts of genres like slutty punk rock, fey new wave, and goth, and use the highly brand-identifiable remainder to spruce up what are essentially hooky pop songs. Hot Hot Heat and Yeah Yeah Yeahs have each performed this operation with skill; now, Ima Robot wants a piece of the action. The quintet is led by the histrionic yelp of Alex Ebert, who sounds like Suede's Brett Anderson doing a Johnny Rotten impersonation and sports a bizarre haircut suggestive of Zan from the Wonder Twins. Besides a guitarist and electronicist, the band also includes bassist Justin Meldal-Johnsen and drummer Joey Waronker, two session pros who are also veterans of Beck's band. The L.A. force is strong in these guys, and it shows in the refined, curiously vapid quality of their music. "Dynomite," "Song, No. 1," and "Alive" are the first three songs on the album, but they're also the most representative (barring the cheeky, effete rap of "Black Jettas").
Track List (try tracks 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8 and 9)

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