Bulletproof Monkeys (7 stars out of 10)
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NME
Welcome To The Monkey House
by Paul Moody
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Portland indie hedonists bounce back, again. This time with added Duran Duran
Long-term absentees from humility and celibacy; straight A students in Advanced Parmaceuticals and partial to pretty much everything your parents consider to be A Bad Thing, the fact remains that The Dandy Warhols still manage to irritate as many people as they excite.
Having scored probably the most blasé hit of all time with 'Not If You Were The Last Junkie On Earth,' rock's premiere wastrels were drifting contentedly towards oblivion until 'Bohemian Like You' became a mobile phone-selling smash two years ago and they suddenly found themselves charting the same course as the retro-sexual zeitgeist. Cue a bizarre 'experimental' set supporting David Bowie at Meltdown and a lacklustere appearance at Glastonbury, and all those earlier presumptions seemed to be re-confirmed: for the Warhols, just remaining upright was clearly enough.
All of which leads us to their remarkable fourth album, 'Welcome To The Monkey House.' Produced by Duran Duran's Nick Rhodes and featuring an all-star guest line-up including Evan Dando, Chic's Nile Rodgers and (cough) Simon Le Bon, it seems the Warhols bid adieu to conventional reality altogether and head instead for a sleazy universe where lurking in the corners of nightclubs is mandatory and the only lighting comes courtesy of glitterballs.
Gone completely is the reliance on the ancients (Neil Young, Stones, Dylan) and instead we get fizzy T.Rex pastiches, shameless nods to Duran Duran of 'Planet Earth' and enough bleeps'n'sleazy disco bass to suggest electroclash has an unlikely following among the dissolute rock community in Portland, Oregon. It's brave, bizarre and, occasionally, quite beautiful.
As you'd imagine in the middle of such drastic musical plastic surgery, lyrically Courtney Taylor-Taylor is at bitchy as ever. 'We Used To Be Friends' finds him being bugged by tiresome old friends he can't even remember - presumably via Friends reunited - while 'You Were The Last High' opens with the lines "I am alone/But adored by a hundred thousand more" which you'd imagine cause even arch-narcissist Nick Rhodes to raise an eyebrow. Elsewhere he drones wearily over electro-Velvets ('Insincere Because I'), revels in the joy of chemical breakdown ('Hit Rock Bottom') and generally has a field day as the band attempt to recreate Blondie's 'Heart Of Glass' at every turn.
If, occasionally, the band sounds clumsy in their switch from drowsy retro-rock to twitchy disco, so be it. In a world where practically everyone you can think of rush releases new albums to cash in on what they've got, the Warhols have blown their recording budget on hiring their heroes, lost their marbles on drugs (again) and indulged themselves thoroughly.
"See if we can do this in one toke... take," blurts Courtney just before 'I Am Over It'. No chance. See you in five years, dudes.
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