Review: Tokyo Police Club - Forcefield
[Mom & Pop; 2014]
Rating: 4/10
By Sam Kayuha, Contributor
Key Tracks: “Gonna Be Ready”
Canadian indie music hit its peak of popularity in America around 2007, a year in which Arcade Fire officially took over the world, Tegan & Sara started getting the recognition they deserved and even bands like Hot Hot Heat starting notching minor hits. It was in this environment that Tokyo Police Club came along, with songs like the excellent “Nature of the Experiment,” and a solid debut in Elephant Shell.
Seven years later, some of these bands are still rolling (Arcade Fire might be the biggest band in the world) while others have imploded (sadly, Wolf Parade and Death from Above 1979). Tokyo Police Club, meanwhile, has done neither; it has consistently put out records, toured and made festival appearances, all while fading out of the limelight just as consistently.
Its fourth album, and first in four years, is not going to draw it back into the mainstream.
Forcefield starts out ambitiously--or maybe pretentiously--enough with “Argentina, Pts. I, II, III,” an eight-minute epic of fuzzy guitars and cries of “I want a girl / I want you wearing my t-shirt.” This song is possibly the poppiest and least lyrically creative song in the band’s catalog…and the members still felt the need to drag it on for eight minutes.
“Hot Tonight” boasts a catchy chorus, but shallow lyrics make this seem like a song written by high schoolers--“Drinking in the park / Staring at the stars like a satellite dish.” Their first album may have been released when they were teenagers, but most bands eventually leave that phase behind.
“Gonna Be Ready” brings back memories of Bloc Party, which is just about the highest compliment that can be given to a band like TPC. This song shows the promise of its early work much more clearly than the rest of the album. “Beaches” and “Toy Guns” are jangly guitar-pop tunes, but singer David Monks’ voice nears its whiniest point. “Two Guns” could easy pass as Twenty One Pilots--their recent success is obviously an influence on Forcefield.
Album closer “Feel the Effect” does nothing to stand out from the rest of the album, and nothing to make Tokyo Police Club stand out from any other band.
A record like Forcefield can be extremely disappointing, not because this band was expected to come back with a new masterpiece, but because when one looks back on Elephant Shell and Champ one sees a band that shows such promise. Tokyo Police Club today is a band whose star fell far too soon.
