- Label
- Atlantic
- Release date
- 5th May 2008
- Genre
- Indie dance
- Buy this album
- Order CD
Tiresome rabble-rousing from electro band with agenda but not enough tunes
When Hadouken! emerged last year with the Hoxton-baiting nu-rave/grindie anthem That Boy That Girl, it was clear that what they lacked in musical originality they more than made up for in lairy attitude. Sadly, this fractured and frequently obnoxious debut album confirms that this bumptious attitude is pretty much all they have going for them.
In their desperate, Shoreditch-souled attempt to be in-your-face and too cool for school, Hadouken! throw every genre going into their cluttered music, from techno to emo to The Streets-style knowing urban poetry. Their default mode, though, is a crashing, whining electro-clash whose relentless edgy distortion soon becomes wearying, as does their Sigue Sigue Sputnik-style “We are the future!” shtick. Hyperventilating tracks such as Declaration of War are simply trying way too hard, and What She Did even unfolds around that last refuge of the musical scoundrel, a James Brown breakbeat. It’s a disappointing debut from a band not half as smart as they think they are.
More to try: Crystal Castles: Crystal Castles Klaxons: Myths of the Near Future Age of Chance: One Thousand Years of Trouble
