After Broken Social Scene’s initial tryptic carried the collective Toronto scene to international acclaim, the Kevin Drew / Brendan Canning centred alt-pop collective had the wit, canny and sheer cynicism to launch a series of ‘Broken Social Scene Presents:’ records – beginning with Kevin Drew’s ‘Spirit If’, a riotously experimental indie rock record, twinkling with wide eyed valiance – and near enough as collaborative as the original Broken Social Scene project. The second BSSP record has now hit. ‘Something For All Of Us…’ provides a platform for Drew’s cofounder, Brendan Canning. More conventional, if no less energetic than Drew’s début, SFAOU spans the gamut from uptempo cinematic instrumentals (‘All the Best Wooden Toys Come From Germany’), to dreamy shoegaze on ‘Been at it So Long’ & ‘Chameleon’, to grittily melodic alt folk of the Jeff Buckley school (‘Snowballs and Icicles’, ‘Possible Grenade’). Less successfully are the weak Lisa Lobsinger driven pop song ‘Antique Bull’, and the blandly funky ‘Love is New’. Overall, Cannings voice is warm, and his guitar and horn lines catchy, but there’s no snare driven pop anthem to compare with Drew’s ‘Safety Bricks’. None the less, this fuzzy, likeable record should hit the spot for salivating BSS fans.?

I vacuum the CD into iTunes with trepidation. I’m about to review the début album from the most feted Irish live act since Whipping Boy. Fight Like Apes make energetic, clever, sexy music – pop punk in the best possible sense. Live, the band are stunningly entertaining, shooting about the stage drenched in sweat, MayKay screaming and flipping her banshee mane, Pockets headbangin’ in a karate headband like he’s about to loaf his synth in two. After released critically two acclaimed EP’s – ‘How Am I Suppose To Kill You If You Have All the Guns’, ‘David Carradine Is A Bounty Hunter Whos Robotic Arm Hates Your Crotch’, the band are set to release their first feature length record at the end of the month. So what does it sound like?

Straight off the bat, vocals are noticeably cleaner, ‘Jake Summers’ is still a great song, now faster and sounding more like early 90′s “crunch sticky indie pop” (i.e.: Nerdy Girl) than a synthy Hole – eroding the destination between the intro and the ‘that’s not nice what you did to me’ interlude and replacing MayKay’s wonderfully angry ‘fuuuuuck’ with a weaker group chant. ‘Lend Me Your Face’ has been tinkered with, varying the synth tones that run over the intro, it’s more rounded but loses some of it’s furious smirk. ‘Battle Stations’ features sharper guitar and more developed farty synths, but the softer vocals may divide fans, especially in the synth-horn section. ‘Do you Karate?’ sounds less flat and fuzzy overall especially on the ‘shit shit shit shit bang bang’ shouty bit ™.

Of the new tracks ‘Digifucker’, a simple bass heavy track built around almost squeaky chiptuneque synth, horns and scuzzy guitar, is pretty. ‘I’m Beginning To Think You Prefer Beverly Hills 90210 To Me’, an imaginary exchange of letters between the band and a former manager, easily lives up to the bands older material, complete with trademark hilarious shouty bits ‘Suplex, suplex, suplex backbreaker’ and ‘You’re So Fired’. It could be the best track on the album. ‘Lumpy Dough’ is a great ‘You Are the Hat ‘ style, lush dreamy track, reminiscent of Moon Safari era Air minus the vocoder. ‘You Are the Hat ‘ incidentally makes an appearance on the albums vinyl release. ‘Something Global’ – already released as the albums début single, is poppy with a catchy ironic ‘gimme my hook’ hook. ‘Recyclable Ass’, despite its awesome chiptuny intro, and ‘Tie me up with Jackets’ are fun but less memorable. ‘Knucklehead’, a great Something Global b-side (available on the bands MySpace), didn’t make the cut. All the new tracks share MayKay’s trademark acerbic nonsense lyrics, bitchy-silly catch phrases that somehow never quite sound trivial.

Interesting, the album seems to have been mixed for headphones rather than speakers, an odd choice for a grungy act. Tracks like the final cut ‘Snore Bore Whore’, work far better on a good pair of cans (sic).
The cover, featuring artwork by Analogue photographer Loreana Rushe (which I’m told folds out into a huge poster for you ass), is a throwback to the bands first single (‘David Carradine..’) featuring a skeletal figure carrying, you’ve guessed it, a golden medallion.

Fight Like Apes may have stumbled, albeit it only slightly, into the over clean production trap that lies in wait for Irish acts (what’s so wrong with lo-fi?), but the fresh tracks on this album are strong enough that those worried about FLapes future should have few concerns.

The new album will be available to stream from midnight tonight (Thursday 18th September) on Entertainment.ie. Fight like Apes and the Mystery of the Golden Medallion is available in shops and online from September 26th for a very reasonable €14.99.

Continuing the baroque revival with lush orchestral arrangements, perverse lyrics and a hodgepodge of eclectic instrumentation – Parenthetical Girls third LP ‘Entanglements’, ripe with snatches of verse and vocal phrasing referencing pop’s credibly melodic lunatic fringe (from Kate Bush to the Smiths), is an intricate if occasionally overloaded enterprise. It’s as though someone sat frontman Zac Pennington down and told him he had one final stab at an album, and in terror he threw a career full of instrumental experimentation behind his Connor Oberst meets Travis Morrison falsetto. Over the top production is simultaneously ‘Entanglements’ greatest strength and weakness. At its best, as on the dreamy pedorastic ballad ‘Avenue of Trees’, or the multiplicitously referential ‘Song for Ellie Greenwich’, or on Penningston’s wonderful reimagining of Michel Legrand chamberpop staple ‘Windmills of Your Mind’; ‘Entanglements’ is a candy coloured clown – tumbling through conceptually driven lyrics and multigenre medleys with knowing delight. But where it falls down, as on the Dresden Dolls style dirge ‘Abandoning’, or the Fiona Appleishly overwritten ‘Gut Symmetries’, the album can seem top heavy and cloying in a way that eschews the unpretentious evocativeness of the best of its precursors. That said, ‘Entanglements’ is an intriguingly dense listen, highly recommended for the Jon Brion / Andrew Bird retinue, and fans of perverse, delicious, instrumental pop everywhere.

Support for Will Oldham at Sundays gig was provided by the enigmatic and unexpectedly wonderful Baby Dee. Antony Hegarty with a sense of humour, Baby Dee begins with the delicately beautiful ‘Look at Me’, on piano with Cello accompaniment. As the set progresses, it opens into a rich and full bodied four-piece cabaret, as Dee flits from piano to harp.

As a transsexual Baby Dee is ludicrous; cracking with oafish masculinity, like John Lithgow in the World According to Garp. As an artist she excels, weaving burlesque fairy tales that leave Vicar Street breathless – literally the venue, exhibiting an appreciation of the show far greater than that of the goateed office milksop audience, who blithy gab throughout.

Bren compares Baby Dee’s arrangements to Tom Waits’ Rain Dog LP. Dee shares too with Waits a melodramatic inconstant vocal quality, a shifting, improvisational performing style that keeps her band visibly nervous. Dee’s voice fuses the melodic unpredictability and throat catching tenderness of Xiu Xiu’s Jamie Stewart with the tortured expressive sweetness of folk nymph Joanna Newsome. At the same time, her irreverent nuttiness belies a tight vaudevillian professionalism, reminiscent of oldball gypsy cabaret triumvirate ‘Tiger Lillies’.

Finishing off with the outrageous and captivating ‘Big Titty Bee Girl’, featuring the unforgettable line ‘You just can’t keep a good albino down’, Baby Dee delivers deliciously rakish musical theatricality, undercut with adorable self deprecation and gallant elegance.

Baby Dee‘s fifth LP, the biographical ‘Safe Inside the Day‘ (produced incidentally by Will Oldham, and featuring a host of musoratti from Max Moston to Matt Sweeney), is out now on Drag City.