Tokyo Police Club - A Lesson In Crime

by Jim Merrett

Is this it? Short, sharp and largely stolen from The Strokes

"Remember when The Strokes jammed a Converse Allstar in the door and rolled a grenade of slick hip-shaking garage into the frontroom? Tokyo Police Club certainly do. Shameless pilfering it may be, it does remind you why we all got so excited all those years ago"

A lesson in crime, indeed. We’ll begin by learning about theft. The latest in a long line of Canadian outfits to give the music industry a good kick up the arse have their sights fixed firmly on, er, 2001.

Remember when The Strokes jammed a Converse Allstar in the door and rolled a grenade of slick hip-shaking garage into the frontroom? Tokyo Police Club certainly do. Shameless pilfering it may be – down even to Julian Casablancas’ style of delivery – it does remind you why we all got so excited all those years ago.

Any confusion as to who you are listening to is, however, blown out of the water with call to arms ‘Cheer It On’, the lead track on this mini-album, with the band’s name chanted like a mantra. ‘Nature Of The Experiment’ continues the theme. We’re talking tight, spiky and well turned-out. Hand-clap extravaganza ‘Citizens Of Tomorrow’ plays like The Go! Team happy-slapping Interpol, and by ‘Shoulders & Arms’ the post-punk synths are unleashed to full effect.

This first stab is encouraging. Maybe lacking the originality of some of their fellow countrymen, Tokyo Police Club possess an urgency that demands interest and may see them leapfrogging their peers.

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