If You Think This Is Attractive, You're Being Deluded

Fixin' The Charts Vol. 1 is the album by Everybody Was In The French Resistance… Now!. I have listened to this a lot, because it is totally ace. If you have read what I said about their live performance you basically get the idea. This record, by the lead vocalist (Eddie Argos) of Art Brut and the keyboardist (Dyan Valdès) of The Blood Arm, gives us songs answering well-known tracks by other artists. The one big difference to the way they sound live is that here Dyan Valdés' backing vocals are a bit higher in the mix. The tracks are largely driven by the lyrics, but if any other band had lyrics this good their songs would be too.

The tunes often manage to be both droll and quite affecting at the same tyme, with 'Billie's Genes' (replying to 'Billie Jean') 'Hey! It's Jimmy Mack!' (replying to, astonishingly, 'Jimmy Mack') and 'Coal Digger' (the chip fat song; I think it replies to some song called 'Gold Digger', albeit in a somewhat notional sense) being especially striking in this regards. A lot of it, however, is straightforwardly funny, like 'He's a "Rebel"' (an answer to some girl group song called 'He's A Rebel') being extremely chortlesome, with its amusing duetting between Ms Valdés (in raptures over this rebellious boy) and Mr Argos (wise to his game, but obviously a bit jealous).

I feel that this record is destined to be one of my favourites of this year. Whatever else you might say about Indietracks, I will be forever grateful to the festival for introducing me to this lot.

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