We
Are Scientists dance hit too late
By Angela O’Brien
Online Forty-Niner
Contributing Writer
After a BBC Radio 1 executive discovered them at Texas’ annual
South by Southwest music festival last year, We Are Scientists made their way
across the
pond to the United Kingdom and became instant sensations.
The Brooklyn trio dropped their debut, full-length disc, “With Love and
Squalor,” Jan. 10 with hopes of recreating their U.K. success to the Yanks.
The band hates to describe their music, so instead they confusingly call it
“Advanced
High Level Sectional Articulation.” However, for those without such elevated
levels of vocabulary, their music is plainly danceable rock made for demanding
radio and television airwaves.
The disc begins strongly with their single “Nobody Move, Nobody Get Hurt” which
MTVU likes to bless students within heavy rotation.
Essentially the perfect single, the song is energetic and bouncy with sassy “whoa-oh-oh-oh” hooks.
The pop hit would not be complete, of course, without a risque chorus (“My
body is your body/And I’m not just anybody/If you want to use my body/Go
for it, yeah”). Catchy indeed, this reviewer has been singing the chorus
all afternoon.
According to the band, they are inspired by “the way a painting looks” to “the
taste of a certain sheet cake,” but it is evident they are inspired by
anything in their dance-rock genre and fail to make it their own.
We Are Scientists make their lucid attempt at music stardom clear with song titles
like “Can’t Lose,” “Cash Cow” and “It’s
A Hit.” But all the listener really needs is “The Great Escape” to
a better album.
Rounding out the disc, the last song on the album begins as cliched as can be: “What’s
the point of making all this noise if nothing’s ever getting heard?” Good
question—but it has been asked too many times before.
We Are Scientists is an underdeveloped cross-breed of the Killers and ex-tour-mates
Hot Hot Heat. It is clear the band desperately wants its 12-song debut to launch
them into the dance-rock craze. Unfortunately for them, they are about a year
and a half too late.
We Are Scientists simply does not have the flair and wonder the Killer’s
brought to the music scene two years ago.
This time next year, We Are Scientists
will just be another “We Are-Who?”
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