The Asteroids Galaxy Tour - Fruit (Small Giants)
2/5
By: Stephen Maughan
Good evening. Welcome to the hip New York club Studio 54. It's 1977, and Tim Clark, who is the manager of pop wunderkinds(kinder?) Roxy Music has just signed a new Danish band called the Asteroids Galaxy Tour, fronted by the charming Mette Lindberg. Great! Put on the record and let's take a spin...
No, no that can't be right. Wasn't this the band from the annoying iPod advert. Isn't every Radio 1 DJ playing their songs? Didn't I hear them on hip American soap Gossip Girl? Is that Amy Winehouse at the front of their concerts? What year is this anyway and when exactly is the new Roxy Music record coming out?
Well, grandpa, it's 2009, and while there is no sign of a new Roxy release to cheer you up The Asteroids Galaxy Tour are here to rock through your headphones with heart racing 70's glam rock and pop, catchy dance tunes and the high pitched disco sounds straight from the party streets of Copenhagen! So cast aside your worries about the recession and your pension fund, and hit the dancefloor with grandma.
If, on the other hand, your name is not Tim Clark (who also gave the world T-Rex and managed Robbie Williams, but let's not hold grudges against the poor, sorry rich, fellow) and you did not buy an iPod because the TV advert had a pretty Danish girl singing a catchy song, and you actually like to absorb music as a form of art, not merely because Amy Winehouse tells you to do so, and you are cynical of any press release that starts "one of the year's most exciting new bands"... you may well have problems with this release.
Fruit is, more than anything else, a feel good party release where the best songs hit you from the word go. Both 'The Sun Ain't Shining No More' and 'Push The Envelope' sparkle with a kind of feel good electro sunshine, enough to put even the most sombre Morrissey fan into the mood of a glowing disco queen. But towards the middle and the end of the LP your attention starts to wean. Mattie's high pitched voice doesn't have the edge or the power of someone like Kathleen Hanna, or even Amy Winhehouse. By the time we get to 'Sunshine Coolin'' you wonder how many times the same programmed drumbeat can be repeated as Mattie sings over and over "We don't care..."
Perhaps there lies the problem. The problem I have with the Asteroids is not the commercial aspect, or the celebrity fans and high profile "tv-spots", but somehow a feeling that this is enough in itself to make a good album. A few cracking songs put on at the start of the album, and then fill it up with average disco beats and hope nobody will notice because once the pay check has come in from all the advertising it doesn't matter anyway. Perhaps that is unfair, but the term "One of the year's most exciting new bands" means to me a band with the most exciting sounds, not the most exciting media appeal.
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