Giant Robot Spare Parts Vol. 1,
GigantorThankyou Golf Records, because without you, I doubt this release would have ever seen the light of day with myself. To the uninitiated Gigantor are a German five piece pop punk band who play more than exemplary pop tunes in fine style. From the delicious melodies to the quirky covers they choose to play, you find it hard not to like a band who seem to take so much joy from their job and in spreading their music, I dare this double disc release not to brighten up your day. Golf have taken the chance to showcase the bands talents once more and it is an absolute delight as it bops along with minimum fuss and with other releases by the band set for release, the Gigantor train can only keep on-a-chuggin.
While disc two largely made up of covers from their second album ”It’s Gigantic”, which I will come onto later, disc one is the bands debut album “Magic Bozo Spin. Fourteen tracks of simple yet alarmingly catchy punk is the order of the day and it goes down a treat as it opens with the darkly contagious ‘Time Flies’ before moving onto the similarly likeable ‘R.W.A’. While none of the tracks stand up and shout at you in an affable manner, all come with a distinct German efficiency (The commentator’s favorite cliché when the German football team rear their heads no less…) that is tight, clean and ultimately likeable. Other standouts on the first disc include the Latin flavored ‘Amoeba’, the pacy ‘It’s Gigantic’ and the amusing ‘Gigantor’. It isn’t all up to this standard though as slight disappointments appear in the form of the dull ‘Loony’ and the boring ‘From the Mountains’. Still, nobody is perfect…
The second CD is largely made up of covers from a whole host of bands such as Depeche Mode (Everything Counts), Kiss (Beth) and Sting (Russians). While the host of covers aren’t particularly ground breaking it is refreshing to hear different angles on songs certain other artists may not consider in reinventing. A strong re-working of ‘Do they know its Christmas’ stands out as does the Ramones ‘Commando’ but the best is produced on the very first track as they cover ‘Pure’ by the Lightning Seeds. You know which track I’m talking about and it is embedded in your memory from the moment the first chord is struck and is a fine moment indeed.
With no less than 38 tracks on offer including some of the bands finest tracks and eclectic covers, if you have a spare tenner, there is really no reason not to divulge in this. For the humble pop punk fan, this will be an untapped resource of delights and it certainly has achieved waking me up in a summery mood when turned on in the morning. This is value for money at its most obvious.
Jay
www.gigantor.de
Golf Records
