Pants Yell! - Received Pronunciation Review

Who gives a fuck about Oxford English? Pants Yell! have named their fifth album after, basically, the Queen's accent. If the title of last year's Alison Statton placed the Boston trio in the less-is-more lineage of Young Marble Giants, then Received Pronunciation acknowledges what they still more or less are: indie pop formalists, mastering a given dialect rather than inventing unknown tongues. The band's latest does away with the horns and strings of its predecessor, following a bit more conservatively in the tradition of wordy, tuneful, earnest underdogs from Small Factory and the Trashcan Sinatras to the Lucksmiths.

What Received Pronunciation loses in variety-- my kingdom for another "Two French Sisters"!-- it largely makes up for with increasingly accomplished songcraft. Since when has subtlety been supposed to call attention to itself, anyway? You're probably not going to like Received Pronunciation unless you occasionally enjoy breezy, midtempo songs with jangling/shimmering (choose one) rhythm guitar, slinky lead guitar lines, bustling drum fills, warm bass, and shy vocals, but the appeal of Pants Yell! is less about a particular sound than about lyrics and melodies. It also probably helps if you tend to appreciate understated storytelling and unexpected rhymes, though a line like, "I remember your white sunglasses/ And the way the sun just went right past us," is a little more Billy Bragg than Upper West Side soweto....full text 1 Frank and Sandy
2 Rue de La Paix
3 Cold Hands
4 Got to Stop
5 Spider
6 Someone Loves You
7 Marble Staircase
8 Not Wrong
9 To Take...full text Pants Yell! are one of those rare great bands that come out with a good debut, and then keep getting better with each subsequent album. So good even, that their third, Alison Statton, was my #1 album of 2007. Now here's the fourth, Received pronunciation.

I've just hit the 'order' button on the Slumberland website half an hour ago, so I can't tell you a lot more about this than the very obvious: New Pants Yell! On Slumberland! I'm excited!...full text