Rockin' Our Turntable: Switches

By Tankboy in Arts & Entertainment on Apr 1, 2008 4:05PM

After a waaaay too long delay, the Switches debut album Lay Down The Law is finally available in the U.S. Their song "Drama Queen" ensnared us last year with it's stomping glam beat, sneering Dandy Warhols-esque verses, and it's over the top Queen-sized chorus. The rest of the album took the promise of that original salvo and decimated our expectations in the best possible way.

The title track mines the last bit of gold out of the heavy-bottomed rock-disco thing, while "Coming Down" is all supercharged neu-New-Wave that surfs along sugar, spice, and dagger-sharp synth squeals. In fact the album is bursting with songs that gleefully take pop conventions, ratchet them to 11, and then channel them into tightly arranged songs that are stunning once you realize just how young the tunes' creators are ... they won a university battle of the bands competition a few years ago and the prize was an opening slot for The Darkness.

Switches are not going to end up on any critic's year end "Best-of" lists for creating a masterful, unique piece of high art, but they damn well better show up on those same lists for crafting one of the finest -- and ridiculously enjoyable -- pop constructions we've heard thus far this year.