Operator Please - Just A Song About Ping Pong (Brille)
UK release date: 19 February 2007
Re-release date: 4 June 2007
Like all new phenomenon, the fire-trail blazed by Be Your Own PET has created a new market where labels can sell their wares on the back of a glowing neon bandwagon, yet Operator Please from Australia's Gold Coast have just enough originality to deter the snipers.
There's now a profuseness of vivacious blond front-girls bouncing to the staccato lines of big brother's electric guitar, and the way Just A Song About Ping Pong bounds out of the tracks before the gun has ever sounded makes me check my pockets for reassuring signs of my wallet.
The BYOP guitars, the Le Tigre-esque backing vocals, it all strives a little too hard for that effortless cool, a contradiction that should have been realised at the very start. But when Operator Please put the hub in the wheel, it doesn't half spin. Guitars and keyboards erupt like fireworks in Get What You Want, singer Amandah finding her voice steadily in the more informed chaos, and by the time she gets you at piano-side for the twisting, ebullient Two For My Seconds, there's a tinge of innocent euphoria in the air.
Lessons will be learnt, notably the most un-rock 'n' roll of all - that shape, form and sheer honesty are the essence of dissolute cool, but Operator Please are on the verge of opening some exciting box of tricks.
share: 
