As a reviewer there are some albums you write about because you want to and some albums you write about through duty and because no bugger else in the office will. I have to admit that ‘The Colourful Life’ started out in the second category, but by the end of the third track I realised I was being won over.
Cajun Dance Party seem to have been around for ages, certainly the music industry hype machine has been spinning in their direction for a while now, but here at the point of release for their debut album is where the talking stops and the music has to take over.
I don’t know whether it’s the innocent naivety of the songs, the band are all ludicrously young, or the precociousness of their musicality or just the fact that they write infectiously catchy songs, but I have to admit that they seem to have delivered with this record.
While their sound has plenty of contemporary touch points and in places certainly owes more than a tip of the hat to those Monkeys of the Arctic variety, there is much more to this set than any bandwagon jumping. The influence of producer Bernard Butler is very apparent and while he lends a mature head to the youthful exuberance on display, he occasionally imparts an atmosphere that is firmly rooted in the 1990’s which is welcome in places but I’m not sure that it’s always a good thing.
The first three tracks, ‘Colourful Life’, ‘The Race’ (the next single) and ‘Time Falls’ clip along at a fair old pace but it’s the single from way back last year ‘The Next Untouchable’ that really pricks up the ears. A great slice of Indie Pop and no question.
As debuts go this certainly more accomplished than I would have expected from a band who are still at school (is that just the bitterness of age?), ‘No Joanna’ and the album closer ‘The Hill, The View And The Lights’ display a depth that one would not expect from callow youths and that bodes well for their future.
Top Tracks: 'The Next Untouchable', 'The Race'.
Released 28/04/08 on XL Recordings