Rykodisc
2008
Superabundance
About This Album
Young Knives couldn't be faulted for much on their breakthrough album, Voices of Animals and Men. If their tartar plaid and throwback video-making -- not to mention their angular new wave musical sense -- made them seem rather retro-obsessed, their songs were pure gold and singer Henry Dartnall played the nerdy, over-analytical type very well. But where Voices of Animals and Men featured social critique that didn't make life seem too bad (just the kind of place where you might have to work in a takeaway shop or get a little freaked out about relationships and school life), on Superabundance the situation is quite dire. Dartnall's view of life in England now includes the dreariness of its domestic life, its materialism, the desperation of its nightlife, its lack of care for the individual -- and that's just the first four songs. It's gotten so bad, apparently, that suicide is an option ("Sitting in the front seat/turning on the motor/sucking on the hosepipe/keep it turning over"). But music is, by and large, entertainment and escapism, so regardless of whether Young Knives intend to add enlightenment to that formula, their hooks and their ideas -- their entire musical package -- are too intriguing and exciting to provoke the usual worries about agit-pop.
Track List (try tracks 1,3,4,5 and 6)

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