Do Something Pretty's Welcome To The Monkey House review

Do Something Pretty fanzine
We Used To Be Friends
by Joe Weiler
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"Wire are coming back again/Elastica got sued by them." Not the opening line you'd expect from an American band, or any band for that matter, but The Dandy Warhols were never ones to do the expected. Take their second album, The Dandy Warhols Come Down, where legend has it their spent their entire advance on drugs, took them, and recorded themselves with instruments attached. And everyone remembers the one where they took one of the classier singles of 2000 and turned it into one of the most over-exposed advert cash in singles of 2001. Bohemian Like You won them some temporary fans, but this release will see if any of the Ring Ring kids are still listening. In fact they might be surprised that the Dandies have been perfecting the stoner groove for 4 albums now.

If they were as messed up for their last album, Thirteen Tales From Urban Bohemia, then they were at least creative with it. Whereas Thirteen Tales was sprawling and taking in several genres, Monkeyhouse stays more focused on its sound. Fans of the Dandies or offbeat American rock in general won't be disappointed. We Used To Be Friends could very well repeat Bohemian Like You's saturation airplay, and Courtney Taylor-Taylor (got to love that surname) has been brushing up on his falsetto. The keyboard bass has been brought forward and gives the album an occasional 80s feel. Is that Thriller's bass line being ripped off in Scientist? No doubt hanging with Bowie and Duran Duran influenced this direction. The Dandies supported Bowie at last year's Meltdown, so he obviously let them borrow his jingle-jangle Ashes To Ashes piano for I Am Sound.

So if all their Vodafone riches went the same way as …Come Down, then this time it's less obvious (expect for the "let's see if we can do this in one toke...take" interlude). I don't know what the Monkey thing is about though.