Absentee - We Should Never Have Children (Memphis Industries)
UK release date: 15 May 2006
As its title suggests, there's a bedsit post-irony about Absentee, a dark humour weaned on small press comics, dark pop sensibilities from Pulp to Leonard Cohen and all wrapped up in guitars that recall Graham Coxon in one of his more playful moods.
We Should Never Have Children is the latest offering from the London band, a taster of their forthcoming album Shmotime, produced by James Ford, who has previously worked with the Arctic Monkeys, Test Icicles and the Mystery Jets. It perfectly showcases Dan Michaelson's witty lyrics: opening line "You're no oil painting and I'm no Michelangelo, Oh no," immediately sets out his stall as to why the song's anti-hero and his ill-matched girlfriend would do the world more of a favour by not breeding, while Melinda Bronstein provides the perfect whiny, clinging girlfriend-from-hell response in her petulant repeated sulk of "I Want, I Want".
It's like Jarvis Cocker crossed with a trailer trash Shangri-Las - which would probably make the most poptastic children indie fans could imagine. In the meantime, buy the single, look forward to the upcoming album and make Absentee the stars they deserve to be.
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