Yahoo! Music Album Review

Released on 05/05/08
Label: Atlantic

Like radiation, prolonged exposure to Hadouken! changes you in unusual and unexpected ways. On first listen, they are clearly atrocious: cheap, nasty and tweenbound as a crateful of knock off alcopops. But after a while this bewildering barrage of nosebleed noise and youth culture gibbering starts to become strangely compelling. After all, the last ten years have seen at least as many cultural shockwaves as the '60s (the moral humbling of America, the SMS and Internet revolutions, the rise of militant Islam, Crazy Frog) so shouldn't more new bands sound as hectic, modern and chaotic as Hadouken!? Could they in fact be, if not the voice, at least the sound of their generation?

Given such lowly sales figures and minor league fame, their generation would appear to think otherwise, which means you can cancel your one way ticket out of the country. We aren't talking T-Rextasy, Spicemania or even Keane-Kraziness here. But that doesn't mean "Music For An Accelerated Culture" isn't an interesting record, not to mention a much better one than their early EPs, singles and - sigh - USB mixtapes suggested. It sees Hadouken! both honing their sound and taking tentative steps onwards.

And, for better or for worse, the Hadouken! sound - all Nintendo bleeps, trash synths, torrential breakbeats and hyperactive, estuary yelping - is strikingly original. It's best represented here by an old song - the venomous sonic assault of "That Boy That Girl" - and a newer one, the trance-indebted, rollercoaster-paced "Get Smashed Gate Crash" (though the subject of Myspace-inspired house-trashing parties that thrilled last year's tabloids means this has dated even faster than most Hadouken! songs).

But elsewhere, the limitations of the blueprint make themselves clear. "Crank It Up"'s helter skelter beats, bluetooth namechecks and bubblegum chorus are only entertaining in so far as you can imagine Noel Gallagher's head exploding on first listen, Paul McCartney and Ray Davies chords showering the area. And "Gameover" is just horrible, three and a half minutes of pointless noise that sound like a Klaxons track with all the ingenuity and charm drained.

Perhaps aware that their novelty is wearing perilously thin, Hadouken! do try a few new tricks, like the gruesome "Declaration Of War", a fusion of rave and soft rock that sounds like the Scorpions remixed by Pacman. Far better is the jaunty, tuneful "Mister Misfortune" - with its Goldfrapp glam stomp and growling synths - and the brooding ballad "Wait For You", which might have been almost moving had they resisted the urge to bomb a Casio factory halfway through.

Whether Hadouken! can build on these slim beginnings to become anything more than a minor youth fad is doubtful. But if they inspire just a few younger bands to play outside the tired drum and strum blueprint enshrined by the '60s, they'll have been worth it.

    by Jaime Gill