Yahoo! Music Album Review

Released on 14/08/06
Label: Sup Pop

Brazil is famed for many, many sexy, sublime and stunning, iconic national treasures. Wild images of carnival, Pele dancing across a football field or the imposing spectre of Christ The Redeemer on Rio's skyline are all etched onto our minds. The nation is not, however, famed for its music, unless you're knee-deep in a conversation with an Uncut writer about favella funk. Enter CSS, who are here not only to bite you on the bum but also became this year's most intriguing new foreign import in the world of pop.

At first, their nationality is not immediately obvious, but listen carefully to "Cansei Der Ser Sexy" and snippets of foreign lingo emerge. CSS - it stands for 'tired of being sexy' - are from Sao Paulo and it's not hard to see why they're a phenomenon in their native Brazil, having honed their winning concoction of sass and synths on the city's disco punk scene. It's also for good reason that stardom over here is now following. Indeed, one of the radiant things about the incorrigible six-piece is their handle on international social foibles.

Throughout their debut, singer Lovefoxx's brash, smutty lyrics take a considered poke at the vacuous nature of our celebrity gripped media. The deadpan chica of "Meeting Paris Hilton" dismisses the ubiquitous heiress in a storm of "bitch, bitch, bitch bitch", as Pop Bitch readers presumably nod their heads in approval. Quite how this precocious nymph and the rest of her mob got to be so literate in lambasting our popular culture is difficult to grasp. But the mystery may well be explained as an example of how in the modern, internet linked planet, the gap has shrunk between our international ethos.

Crucially, CSS skilfully weave references not only to our OK magazine neurosis but the last few decades of music too, with a sophisticated mash of indie, '80s pop, disco and electro. Influences are clear, in places poetic, in others pure car crash, but these Brazil nut jobs wing it without pretension but with lashes of fun. Imagine Tom Tom Club joined by Karen O, live at Trash. Tracy Ullman is working the bar, The Slits the toilet and the "Kids From Fame" are on the dancefloor. Phew.

A mass of sing-a-long choruses reminiscent of early Blondie run through the album, from first single "Lets Make Love And Listen To Death From Above", to "Alaha" - new wave meets punk with echoes of Peaches - and onto the album's highlight, "Music Is My Hot Hot Sex", which is a sure-fire pop winner, featuring low slung bass, steamy lyrics and an infectious, lazy drum beat.

So, CSS are on a mission to shock and damage you but most of all entertain your socks off. Wrestle with the CD, lie back and think of Brazil. Let Cansei De Ser Sexy do with you as they will.

    by Laura Kelly