…Earth to the Dandy Warhols…

Living in Australia, I had the chance to pick up ‘…Earth to the Dandy Warhols…’ yesterday. The cover features a photo taken in 1972 by Apollo 17 nicknamed; ‘The Blue Marble.’

This cover is quite fitting as the album, as a whole, feels like space… Don’t ask how, it just does. I assume it has something to do with the sonic buzzes and blips that feature throughout.

The album sounds quite condensed - like a whole lot of different sounds and elements have been squashed down in to a neat little package. So, it sounds different. But not bad, not bad at all.

The album really picks up and impresses at the second track; ‘Mission Control.’ Again, with the space theme, this reminds me of something you might hear in ‘Doctor Who.’ It’s nice and short and is just plain fun to listen to.

‘Welcome to the Third World,’ the third track, is fantastic. Probably, or nearly, my favorite on the album. Talking Heads springs to mind.

The fourth track, ‘Wasp In the Lotus,’ doesn’t do much for me - I think maybe one of the weakest on the album… Except for the last track… We’ll get to that later.

The next two tracks, ‘Dreamt of Yes’ and ‘Talk Radio’ go very well together. They both have a great ‘groove’ (I guess) to them.

I think ‘Love Song’ is a bit bland - not my favorite on the album.

Then, the album comes to a new strong point - this is three really consistently great tracks in a row. These are ‘Now You Love Me,’ ‘Mis Amigos’ and ‘…Outlaw Truckers…’ Really, really, really fantastic songs here.

However, I am not a fan of what comes after. ‘Beast of All Saints,’ ‘Valerie Yum’ and ‘Musee D’Nougat’ are really just plain boring. Especially the last track, running at nearly 15 minuets, I really struggle to sit through it. I don’t know, maybe these will be ‘growers.’

That being said, this is a really great album overall - a different sound, yes, but a very good one. I think its strong points heavily outweigh its few negative points.

9/10