Antennas Up Needs Fewer Antennas Up
Debut album suffers from identity disorder
Antennas Up
Antennas Up
Released on Mar 31, 2009
It’s one thing to have ear out for
what’s circulating on the satellite radio, it’s another endeavor
altogether to appropriate as many echoes from the airwaves as possible
into a pastiche or persona. Antennas Up disorders such a dissociative
identity, evinced by the group’s electronic genre-crossing and formative
difficulties (formerly DTE, and led by a number of since ousted singers).
Despite what seems like an appeal to just about every audience from
bit pop to nerdcore, their self-titled debut album of self-styled, sappy
R&B faux-funk and “fist-pumping pop” is more an overproduced
series of interludes than a fully realized composition.
Antennas Up gestures towards
irony on occasion, but never convincingly upsets a real and unfortunate
sincerity. So many songs are underscored with longing, compelled
not by true genius or (worse) the impetus of self-expression, but instead,
the desire to impress members of the opposite sex. As indicated
by the markèd obsession with “getting girls” in their promotional
material, prepubescent females may very well be their target market.
Most songs sound like Justin Timberlake sans Timbaland meets Jamiroquai
in their funky unoriginality. In an attempt to top (or even appear
on) the charts, Antennas Up sacrifices talent for widespread appeal.
Not every track adheres to the appeal for popularity. A couple-few pop-tart rhyme schemes sound something like Lyrics Born, with a bit more synth, but without the devastating wit with which LB delivers his lines. On the flip side, a sequence toward the end of the album revolves around a nonsensical sexual exchange between computer-coded voices repeating, “I’m a spaceship” and segues into and out of the adjacent tracks with ease. And yet, this track seems out of place amid the syrupy rhythms and falsetto vocals. Antennas Up can’t decide if they’re trying to be witty or ironic, and every lyric betrays an ugly emo impulse, at work throughout the album.
The authentic talent underlying Antennas Up comes out in the well-crafted melodies and most refrains,
and engenders moments of innovative menace, such as the twisted, tragic
novelty of the haunting croon in “She’s Evil,” reminiscent though
the rest of the track may be of Fall Out Boy since about 2006.
Antennas Up are at their best when they don’t stray too far from faux-rock
backdrops and easy listening lyrics (“High and Mighty Parade”) or
truly embrace a goofy electronica aesthetic (“5P4C35H1P”) but are
unlikely to appeal to fans of hip-hop or bit-pop.
High Point
The digitized pillow talk in “5P4C35H1P."
Low Point
The bouncing back-and-forth between R&B and attempts at irony.
Posted by Diego Baez on Apr 22, 2009 @ 6:30 am