Thirteen Tales From Urban Bohemia
The Dandy Warhols once teetered on the verge of a gigantic mainstream crossover with a song that boasted the opening lines "I never thought you'd be a junkie/Because heroin is so passe",
Eamon Sweeney, 06 Jul 2000
The Dandy Warhols once teetered on the verge of a gigantic mainstream crossover with a song that boasted the opening lines "I never thought you'd be a junkie/Because heroin is so passe", plus a video featuring dancing syringes.
Since then, its been quite quiet on The Dandy's pop psychedelic front, but Thirteen Tales From Urban Paranoia is exactly what it says on the tin: a diverse collection of Velvet Underground-flavoured pop and twisted neo-cowboy blues, tarnished with a semi-serious yearning to be the soundtrack for stoner moaners everywhere.
The opening seamless, swoonsome swoosh of 'Godless', 'Mohammed' and 'Nietscheze' is sheer genius: a moody, spaced out acoustic rock soundscape that evokes perfect pop memories such as The Boo Radley's 'Lazarus', and such bold and daring suites of music as Underworld's 'Juanita/Kiteless/To Dream of Love' triumvirate on Second Toughest In The Infants.
Unfortunately, it proves to be a sad case of The Warhols shooting their load far too soon. The humour and carry-on-rock'n'roller charm of their earlier work is sorely lacking, particularly on the rather lame comeback single 'Get Off' and the sickeningly sad lifestyle celebrations 'Cool Scene' and 'Bohemian Like You'.
And if anything on this record is to produce a similar notoriety to 'Not if You Were the Last Junkie on Earth', it is probably the theremin-soaked 'Horse Pills'.
The Dandy Warhols can be great, but could be far greater - the drugs definitely didn't work.
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