Send "Tokyo Police Club " Ringtones to your Cell 
| Pitchfork |
 In Internet years, Tokyo Police Club are just about ready for retirement. As a group of underage buddies from the Toronto suburbs, their antsy take on post-Strokes rock was an easy upload for music blogs upon the 2006 release of their snappy A Lesson in Crime EP. Back then, their chances of living beyond the next Hype Machine cycle was anyone's guess, and any notions of longevity seemed moot for a band that preferred to wrap things up around the two-minute mark. But as other 2006 indie upstarts like Annuals, Be Your Own Pet, and Voxtrot have blown up or faded away, Tokyo Police Club endure. This is not a coincidence.For a band that originally got great mileage out of their bubbling exuberance, TPC's 2008 LP bow Elephant Shell was a relatively stately surprise. Settling into a combination of 1990s emo-pop and 00s post-punk fizz, the group were growing up quick. (Perhaps too quick for some.) Singer and bassist David Monks' yelps were now grounded in gravel, his scratchy throat specked with Conor Oberst, Britt Daniel, and even a little bit of Paul Westerberg. Meanwhile, his words were often cryptic and deathly. On the follow-up, Champ, TPC pull back on some of the beyond-their-years seriousness. Monks is still waxing about lost time and half-sour childhood memories, but he's also referencing 90s R&B duo K-Ci & JoJo and confessing his admittedly unwise dreams of wedding a dancer or "a vegetarian who can't stand to be wrong." The album title sounds like a casual term of endearment or a floppy dog. The polished tunes give off major-chord gleam. And the album opens with two pre-school-ready superlatives: "Favourite Food" and "Favourite Colour". These guys know how to make wasted youth blister, and Champ is brimming with radio-ready, "woo hoo" hooks for a right-of-the-dial station that no longer exists. Maybe they should chat with Phoenix's product placement team....full text |
| Slantmagazine |
| For four guys in their 20s, Tokyo Police Club sure lays the nostalgia on thick. Champ's lead single, "Breakneck Speed," makes it easy to imagine singer David Monk hovering over his high school yearbook as he reminisces: "I remember when our voices used to sound the same/Now we just translate," he croons, later detouring through "super fun at the movies drunk and young" and "pictures so bright and loud, better off than now." The rest of the band sounds nostalgic too, borrowing from emo mainstays like Jimmy Eat World and Cursive and once-trendy post-punk acts like Interpol and the Strokes to create their own spazzy update on the sound of the early-aughts indie-rock scene, presumably the soundtrack to whatever youthful hijinks Monk is looking back on. Since they emphasize playful literacy over lust or self-loathing (see the rollicking opening pair of "Favourite Food" and "Favourite Colour"), Tokyo Police Club sometimes comes off like a more earnest Vampire Weekend. And just like them, Tokyo Police Club is comprised of smart guys with ambitions to be more than another forgotten blog band. But where Vampire Weekend's Contra showed a band taking intuitive steps forward from their debut's sound, Champ sometimes sounds like the product of a band attempting to evolve by force of will. The second half of the disc in particular gets weighted down with self-consciously mature tracks. "End of a Spark" finds the band experimenting with a longer composition (for sprinters like Monk and company, 3:37 is a marathon), but one that fails to satisfy since the band decides to forgo their typical soft/loud shtick for soft/less-soft, which is not nearly as fun. "Gone" is pretty much straight-ahead synth-rock, and while not a bad tune per se, it lacks the charming punch of the guitar-driven numbers that are the band's real forte. Fortunately, Champ begins with a superb five-track demonstration of just how much Tokyo Police Club has improved in that area. "Wait Up (Boots of Danger)" is a better Ted Leo song than Ted Leo has written in at least half a decade (good luck getting its cheery, wordless refrain out of your head). And though it doesn't come out of the gates strong, "Favourite Food" builds with perfect pacing toward its big finish, which couples syncopated handclaps with a blaring, siren-like guitar solo. It's such an accomplished number that you won't notice as it creeps just up to the four-minute mark, making it the longest Tokyo Police Club track to date. Turns out that the foursome does a fine job of pushing their sound forward when they play to their strengths. Give them a couple more albums, and this thoughtful young band might become a touchstone for the next generation of prematurely nostalgic indie-rock upstarts....full text |
| Spin |
| How can a band with so many ideas make so many songs that leave you feeling the exact same way? Each track on this Canadian quartet's second full-length opens with some clever reshuffling of precise drum pecks, TV-hum synths, Strokes-like guitar, and David Monks' reedy, wry vocals. Three minutes later, you're left with the mildly pleasing, indistinct memory of yelped choruses, mathy breakdowns, and mid-tempo breeziness. The energy of "Wait Up (Boots of Danger)" breaks the spell, but only for a moment....full text |
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