Within about 2 seconds of this CD starting, it’s quite clear who handles Bad Astronaut‘s vocals. Joey Cape has one of the most instantly recognisable vox in punk, so upon hearing the opening line of ‘Greg’s Estate’ it would be easy to think that this is the new Lagwagon CD.
The media have already labelled Bad Astronaut as a mere Lagwagon side-project, but this is unfair and just lazy journalism. The only thing to resemble Cape‘s merry men are that he handles singing duties with both bands. Comparisons should stop there.
Imagine a punk Radiohead, or a good REM, and you’re pretty close to Bad Astronaut‘s sound. That may not sound particularly appetising, but believe me, this is excellent. Weighing in with just 10 tracks, Bad Astronaut leave you with a musical masterpiece; on the heavier tracks there’s swirling guitars and crashing drums, on the more mellow songs it’s just Cape, a guitar and a cello.
In covering an Elliot Smith song, ‘Needle In The Hay,’ you can see where the band’s influences lie. ‘Quiet’ is Radiohead circa ‘OK Computer,’ and there are parts of others (‘Anecdote’ and ‘500 miles’) that sound like the Foo Fighters smoking a big fat spliff. ‘Unlucky Stuntman’ is the best song REM never got chance to write.
There’s one major quibble – length. Clocking in at 30 minutes (drawn out by a 6 minute comical answer-machine message at the end) ‘Acrophobe’ is short. Two tracks fail to get past the 90-second mark. But don’t let this put you off.
If you like Lagwagon then you’re going to love this, but there is certainly a hell of a lot more to Bad Astronaut than their singer’s other band. Innovative and exciting, let’s hope we hear a lot more from this lot in the future.
Paul Savage.