Entire genres have been and gone in the time it’s taken Panda Kopanda to come up with a debut album, and while it is a little silly to talk about whether it’s been ‘worth the wait’ since their formation in 2002, they’ve certainly come up with an album to cherish. And maybe it has taken those years to fully find their sound; to make sure they don’t sell themselves short – operating as a determinedly DIY indie band, they’ve followed their own winding path, made a couple of EPs and then seemingly hidden from view for most of the last two years while they wrote and recorded this record.
Three songs survive from 2006’s The Ocean Of Fire EP, but ‘Spiderwebs’, long-standing live favourite ‘About My Temper’ and the equally upbeat and twitchy ‘Abstract Contact’ are conspicuously absent. The 10 songs that have made it tread a much more tortuous path, and their lyrical depth is matched by the production – rich yet raw, beautifully nuanced and clearly the work of a band in the full knowledge of what they want to achieve, not to mention the musical ability to pull it off. The almost Beirut-esque strings on the stunning ‘Hypnogog’, the portentous synth on the title track, the cacophonous feedback on ‘A Humble God’ – no musical flourish feels tacked on or pointless, and in all they make for an album of rare depth, sophistication and replay value. The bar for Northern Irish bands in 2009 has been set high. Chris Jones
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DOWNLOAD: ‘A HUMBLE GOD’, ‘HYPNOGOG’, ‘TO CARRY YOU HOME’.
FOR FANS OF: DESERT HEARTS, PAVEMENT, DEATH CAB FOR CUTIE.
Posted on: 27th January 2010
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