This is easy. The Polyphonic Spree come from Dallas, wear flowing white robes and number, we think, 23 - it's difficult to count them all crammed onto the Monarch's stage. There's one guy who keeps jumping as high as he can, and threatens to do for the French Horn what Pete Townshend did for the guitar. There's a trumpeter who looks like a cross between Juan Sebastian Veron and a hired killer. There's a ten piece choir squeezed in the corner, at least half of whom look like Moonies on ecstacy. Oh, and the roadie looks like God. As he would.
At this point, what they sound like seems a bit irrelevant, like going to the circus for the tunes. But what makes The Polyphonic Spree more than just an entertaining novelty is that they take the kind of epic, flakey indie rock pioneered by the likes of Mercury Rev and The Flaming Lips back in the early '90s and proceed to make it bigger and bigger and BIGGER still. They may be religious, they may be parodying religion, some of them may even have been in '90s indie no-marks Tripping Daisy. But as they play forthcoming single 'Soldier Girl', it's plain the songs are so fine, the good vibes so infectious that ideology and history are irrelevant. It sounds like the Pixies if the Pixies were a 23-piece "choral symphonic pop band" from Dallas, so that's alright.
As, indeed, are The Rapture. If the overwhelming niceness of the Spree is hideously unfashionable in these days of electroclash, garage rock and optimum sleaze, The Rapture face no such problems of assimilation. This week, they may well be the coolest band on the planet: a home in New York, a sound rooted in the early '80s, an archly frenzied posse of record companies and style hacks on their tails. Anyone outside of a few Hoxton, Berlin and Williamsburgh cliques is entitled to be a little suspicious.
But don't be. For The Rapture are fantastic as well, and far too good to be left to the fashionistas. Yes, their sound is rooted in the early '80s, but in the rigorous but unhinged punk/funk formulated by A Certain Ration and Gang Of Four. Which means manic, bleached disco rhythms, angular, sheet metal guitars, a sax player who evidently owns a few John Zorn albums, and two yelping men with slightly unruly hair. Sometimes, as on 'Out Of The Races And Onto The Tracks', their boggle-eyed discipline and sprung power is reminiscent of Fugazi. Other times, like the astounding recent single 'House Of Jealous Lovers', they sound like the best party band we've heard in years. And they play after the cavalcade of loveliness that is The Polyphonic Spree and aren't an anti-climax, which is quite an achievement in itself. Great night.
