Rockin' Our Turntable: Hockey
By Tankboy in Arts & Entertainment on Oct 19, 2009 4:20PM
Hockey insidiously worms it's way into your heart. We've heard enough dance rock bands in recent years to grow suspicious of any group that could be counted among that ilk. We don't wish James Murphy or The Rapture ill for influencing so many kids starting bands, but goddamn if have to suffer through another group of college kids caterwauling over a disco beat we're gonna start smashing 12 inch singles over somebody's carefully mussed head!
Which brings us to Hockey. The first time we heard their debut, Mind Chaos, we were willing to write them off as just what we expected them to be, pretenders to the throne of indie post-punk boogie. Blame our initial response on simple burn out; we've just taken in too much hype about too many hands adept at mixing a 4/4 beat with a ragged guitar to expect much from the dozens of next big things launched at us weekly, nay, daily.
So thank god Hockey snuck up on us again via shuffle one day at the gym. Sometimes it's necessary to get blindsided by a band -- this is one reason we really do try and ignore band bios and other stuff that might cloud our initial response to a band until after our musical opinion has been formed -- to really appreciate what they have to offer. A blind taste, er, hearing test of sorts.
So what was the result of this fresh read? Well, Hockey is not the second coming of the disco king, but damn if they don't concoct some tasty tunes that split equal time between mining the more new wave hip-hop inclinations of Blondie and cross them with the more rockist iteration of Duran Duran. We ARE sick of the endless parade of "next big things" but Hockey isn't striving for that. Instead they've proven themselves adept at mimicking that cool-as-shit Brooklyn boogie without resorting to the cold detachment most bands in that vein mine in order to remain ironically aloof. And it's this simple twist that makes Mind Chaos such an enjoyable spin over and over again. We don't know if Hockey has the legs to go the distance but they're certainly making their own stance right here and now and for that we applaud them.