The fact that EL VY covered ‘She Drives Me Crazy’ by Fine Young Cannibals during their first live show should tell you all you need to know about the collaboration between The National’s Matt Berninger and Menomena/Ramona Fall’s Brent Knopf…
Sure they’re exhibiting a sense of fun, lifting the portentous fug that surrounds the expectations of something involving Berninger and saying “hey look at us being all tongue and cheek and covering a catchy slice of UK funk-pop.” It’s just a shame that ‘She Drives Me Crazy’ is total dog-shit.
It was a middle-of-the-road, drive-time standard that became so inescapable because it was so bland and inoffensive. It’s nobody’s favourite song. It’s not even Roland Gift’s mum’s favourite song (that would be ‘Johnny Come Home’ of course). And that’s the problem with EL VY’s debut, it’s striving to have a pop sensibility, with some inescapably catchy melodies, but it’s held back by the weight of its own pomposity and a determination to not let itself have too much fun. The result is something much more bland than its component parts.
The sonorous grandeur of Berninger’s vocals feel ill-suited and uncomfortable away from the cathartic dourness of his regular band, his lyrics also sit awkwardly between garbled references (“Erin Brokovich is not my wife”) and lyrics that were probably funnier at the time of writing (‘I’m peaceful because my dick’s in the sunlight”),
Similarly, away from his old band, the not-as-big-as-they-should-be Menomena and his solo project Ramona Falls, Knopf fails to bring any of his usual imagination and mathematically augmented invention to the arrangements. Preferring to hold back, Knopf finds the same middle-ground that The National’s last album Trouble Will Find Me found itself in, neither being as accessible or as immediate as High Violet, nor having the weight or depth as Alligator or Boxer.
In trying to create a lighter-hearted version of their respective day-jobs, these Monsters of Alternative Rock, have created a patronising, overly-intellectualised imitation of pop music by neither committing wholly to its joy or its creativity.
Now to get ‘She’s Drives Me Crazy’ out of my fucking head.
Check out all the latest music releases in our new album reviews section, including Grimes’ album of the year Art Angels.
