“A lot of bands want to over-complicate their second album,” says Palma Violets bassist Chilli Jesson in the press release. “We know that we didn’t.” This is a manifesto they adhere to with results that are mixed. On the one hand, at a time when pop music is mired by utterly clinical precision, he’s right that it’s pleasing to hear music with the messiness left in. On the other, there are plenty of occasions when Danger in the Club emanates a lack of ambition.
To get the negative out of the way first, the worst of it mingles the 1970s Clash at their laziest with dreadful lads’ sing-along choruses akin to The Fratellis' stinking “Chelsea Dagger”. Songs such as the title track and “Gout! Gang! Go!” have a terrace anthem quality which is off-putting. Such triumphal indie splurging fares better on the epic “Peter and the Gun”, but it’s not a style that’s endearing, unless you’re pissed and 16 at the Reading Festival.
Elsewhere, however, Palma Violets - and their producer, the eminent John Leckie - tune into a wilfully dishevelled Eighties indie vibe, combining it with wider and smarter retro references than, say, the Mighty Lemon Drops ever managed. “Walking Home” playfully - and rather too obviously - resurrects the backing vocals and bass voices of doo-wop, but better numbers include “The Jacket Song”, an enjoyable ode to lost clothing that vaguely recalls Peter Sarstedt’s “Where Do You Go to (My Lovely)”, or the angular prog-punky riff at the heart of “Matador”. These are the songs that raise this album, only just, to its 3/5 score.
The whole enterprise is underpinned by a sense that the band are having fun - their daffy humour and the enjoyment of making the album bleeds through. This is refreshing when so many contemporary groups exude nothing but career-focused, steel-eyed Brit School ambition, as if they were lawyers rather than potential rock stars. Palma Violets, on the other hand, muster a ramshackle vibe but, along the way, lose some of the charm and Velvet Underground elegance of their debut.
Overleaf: Watch the video to "Danger In The Club"
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