Pop Levi - The Return To Form Black Magick Party (Counter)
4/5
By: Alex Lee Thomson
Conspiracy theorists beware, as we've got a new one for you. Was Marc Bolan really killed in a tragic car wreck or is he, like Elvis, still roaming the world making great music to this very day? (Editor's note - Alex, if Elvis is still alive, surely he's working as an Elvis impersonator? We'd have no way of knowing...Tom x) It's a question we've been asking more frequently lately as glam-rock and psychedelia make a welcomed come back to our ears. Though where a lot of artist have focused on the big band, synth rock-out, Jitterbug Boogie side, semi-new-comer Pop Levi has gone a bit further back in the glam anthology looking closer at Bowie and a time when T Rex were still called Tyrannosaurus Rex and did gigs crossed legged on the floor while John Peel looked on in amazement.
At times Levi's debut album becomes a parody of his own style and 'Pick-Me-Up Uppercut' placates itself by doing an almost 'steps one to ten' on how to be a new wave glam rocker. It's still undoubtedly a sickly irritating and catchy song that's flicked to repeat far too quickly so you can dance in your underwear getting ready for work with your housemates screaming at you through the walls to turn it up. It's a brilliant example of how the album works as a whole; catchy, pop filled and dirtily glamorous while at times being nauseatingly absurd. Where '...Uppercut' has you swinging from the rafters singing along within minutes while trying to add Rakes dance moves to your daily routine, 'Skip Ghetto' has a Lennon charm - and though you know that's no accident - you're still adroitly drawn into the affection and charm of the practically self produced album, and it's songs like this that give it a lasting appeal. 'Dollar Bill Rock' is too much of an unashamed 'Telegram Sam' rip off to be classed as anything other than unoriginal but damn it if it isn't just fantastically, well, groovy as well.
Elsewhere you find the heart, body and ridiculously obvious appeal of this guys debut in the form of 'Sugar Assault Me Now' which has the grunge reliance of The White Stripes crossed with an eventfully stinging slice of a Monkees / Hendrix partnership. This brutal hop-bop opens the album and jolts you instantly into the realm of eye liner, glittery shoes and robotic dancing and insists attention from each note of its shifting, confusing and eventually engaging layers of wistful celebration.
'Blue Honey' is one of the more vital ditties on display as it shows this as an album that sneaks in quite nicely to 2007 with a feel of Kasabian shook about with bass lines reminiscent of the Gossip. Sure, there are flaws on this album but tracks like 'Blue Honey' and shortly chased '(A Style Called) Cryin' Chic' make it less of an impact piece and more of a nostalgic look at yesteryear with some routines that haven't been injected as well in over 25 years.
It's a classic and soulful representation of how amazing this style of music was in the mid 70s and with it we can begin to understand the joy that our parents must have felt going along to see their heroes play the local palladium on a Saturday night after watching Magpie, or whatever it was our parents watched. If you're not a fan of taking those old records off the shelf and playing that old time rock 'n' roll, this probably wont change your mind, but for those who bask in the wonder that such a genre brings, there's nothing but an inevitable loving relationship ensured. If the big sounds on '...Magick Party' don't molest you to submission, the lighter, quirkier allure found in moments like 'Flirting' surely must, forging a rekindled passion for all things outlandishly and glamorously indie rock 'n' roll in the line of Duels and Switches... and only now do we realise how ahead of the game The Bees were.
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