Yahoo! Music Album Review

Released on 30/01/06
Label: Wall of Sound

A hard band to pin down, The Infadels. When the grot-rock scene exploded in east London, they were in the thick of it, yet their shape-shifting electro-pop seemed completely out of step. They dressed in black, but their songs were relentlessly upbeat. One of them was a skinhead; another wore a bowler hat. Clearly they didn't want lazy hacks pigeonholing them. The awkward bastards.

Cool as it is that they try to be different, The Infadels' eclecticism has resulted in a somewhat messy debut album. From its title downwards, "We Are Not The Infadels" is an exercise in contrariness, veering wildly between propulsive tech-pop, Audio Bullys-style chav anthems and occasional bursts of '60s psych-rock. Yet amid this confusing maelstrom, there are a couple of moments to savour.

Let's face it: when a band opens their first album with a song called "Love Like Semtex", you're already offering them the comfortable chair and tea from your finest china. What's more, the song - amazingly - lives up to its title. Like White Rose Movement single "Alsation", it's sleek, robotic and thrilling, even if its influences are worn plainly on its Cyberdog sleeve. Yeah: "Love Like Semtex" is a slogan to lipstick on your arm and a song to cherish.

Sadly, clichés emerge as a problem the moment track two kicks in. Ask yourself this question: if you're an '80s-reviving electro group with a pronounced Depeche Mode influence, should you really be using titles like "Can't Get Enough"? It's an extraordinary lapse into pastiche and, coming so soon after "Love Like Semtex", it establishes the pattern of wild inconsistency that dominates this record.

See, if you wanted to present The Infadels as the worst band in the world, a couple of tracks on here could save you writing a speech: "Topboy", for example, pits a bewilderingly thuggish vocal against bland Europop backing to produce an ugly massacre; "Jagger '67" is as every inch as tired and retro as its title suggests; and the lull that precedes "Stories From The Bar" is as long and uncomfortable as a Ryan Adams.. Nearly.

However, in its context - and as the tune The Infadels go out on - "Stories From The Bar" damn near saves the day. Sure, it's got filler lyrics (about "sailing a canoe to where the wild things are"), but it's still an endearingly cheap and cheerful surge of trash-pop, and with The Infadels this is the best you can hope for. Another of this album's hottest tunes is called "Murder That Sound" and features a cheesy false ending. Starting to get the picture?

Prone to mediocrity they may be, but The Infadels have passion, ambition and some nasty keyboard sounds. It compensates, just about.

    by Niall O'Keeffe