Dim Mak Records
2005
Chandeliers In The Savannah
About This Album
Although Neon Blonde's Headlines EP showed that Johnny Whitney and Mark Gajadhar's side project could sound like the Blood Brothers while also sounding very little like them, it still wasn't adequate preparation for the crazed inventiveness of their full-length debut, Chandeliers in the Savannah. A glittering, sharp-edged magpie's nest of fractured glam, hip-hop, electronica, pop, Blood Brothers-style fury and whatever else caught the band's fancy, the album is an example of how to build something beautifully ugly out of trash. While Chandeliers in the Savannah's opening track, "Black Cactus Killers," could belong to the Blood Brothers, it quickly gets weirder and more eclectic from there, spanning the equally melodic and chaotic "Crystal Beaches Never Turned Me On" and the glammy, flamboyant piano ballad "Chandeliers and Vines" with blatant disregard for niceties like logic and continuity. Though tracks like "Princess Skullface Sings" lean towards danceppunk, the sound and approach are far more punk than dance, no matter how many drum machines and keyboards Neon Blonde tortured to make Chandeliers in the Savannah. Actually, the album is a lot less blatantly electronic than Headlines suggested it might be (although "Headlines" itself is still one of the highlights here).
Track List (try tracks 2,5,6 and 9)

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