Tokyo Police Club - Champ
MMM3/4
After a few highly regarded EPs, Tokyo Police Club released their debut LP in 2008. There seemed to be, at the very least, some curiosity as to whether or not the band would be able to keep up the energy brimming from their two EPs and carry it across a full-length album. The band succeeded and is now back with LP number two, the simply titled
Champ.
More so than ever before, the band sounds like a cross between The Strokes, Yeah Yeah Yeahs, and Bloc Party (pre-
Intimacy) – in all the best ways. But what’s the point of throwing around comparisons when
Champ proves that, when it comes down to it, Tokyo Police Club sounds like Tokyo Police Club: a garage rock band aiming for the skies, with huge melodies and the unmistakable signature of David Monks' voice and bass lines and Graham Wright’s keyboard/synthesizer. Monks and Wright might be primarily responsible for giving the band its voice, but it's Josh Hook's razor-sharp, laser-quick, epic-sized guitar riffs that propel the band past the confines of the tag “garage rock.” And last but not least, drummer Greg Alsop is tasteful in that he knows when to fire sixteenth notes from the hi-hat and when to keep things simple with a ride cymbal and steady kick and snare drum pattern – credit him for holding it all together.
