First up, Parisian party hip-hop outfit Naive New Beaters. As far as Hip-Hop crews go, it must be said, unless modest handfuls of glitter and knitwear is the stuff of your nightmares, it doesn’t get any less intimidating than this. Vocalist, David Boring, doesn’t so much deliver a series of lyrical non-sequiters as draw from the random sentence generator at every available opportunity. Lyrical bombs like “When you put yourself in danger, represent KFC, Big Burger MC…Are you gonna call me?” are pretty standard fare, but as their name suggests it’s all in the spirit of not-taking-things-too-seriously-man, and even the most curmudgeonly can’t begrudge them the fun they are quite clearly having.
Next up is hipster du jour Darwin Deez and now that the anti-hipster bandwagon is reaching peak velocity (see recent viral Being a Dickhead’s Cool) it seems necessary to take a moment for self-reflection. One look at headband-wearing, moustachioed New Yorker Darwin Deez was all many of us (myself included) needed to write him off. File under Clueless Try-Hard, we might have concluded smugly and judgementally, but after the breezy Strokes-esque melodies of ‘Radar Detector’ and ‘Constellations’ found their way into our hearts and minds it soon became clear that some furious back-pedalling was in order.
His detractors may have pointed out that with only a handful of memorable songsDarwin Deez didn’t really deliver the goods on his debut album, and whilst that may be true, at no point is tonight’s performance anything less than a joy to watch. Granted, this may have something to do with the synchronised dance routines between songs in which all four members of the band set down their instruments and get busy. And, whilst appropriating the likes of Enya for ironic purposes is straight out of the hipster text-book, there’s still something undeniably hilarious about the bands po-faces which don’t crack at all, regardless of how increasingly ridiculous the routines are becoming.
The sideshow never threatens to overshadow the main event though and the songs themselves exhibit an uncanny pop nous and an ability not only to craft, but also execute some of the most effortless and infectious pop music currently doing the rounds. The rather excellent ‘DNA’ shows that Deez is more than capable of writing a hook to hold it’s own with anything in Pheonix’s back catalogue, whilst ‘Bad Day’ is once again impeccable guitar-pop delivered with a wry smile. The moral of the story? Don’t judge a book by it’s cover. Hipsters are people too ya’ know.
Naive New Beaters/Darwin Deez
Digital
Friday 22 October
Words by Liam McCreesh
