Wednesday 27 August 2008

Review - Dorp - Humans Being

Dorp - Humans Being

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6 out of 10

This is Dorp's sixth LP, but only their fist one to have any singles on it (Four, to be precise). They've travelled a lot of miles and got through a dozen band members to get here, 'here' being London. Originally a ska band from Cape Town, singer Pieter Bez and guitarist Kevin Floyd relocated in 1999; they ditched the brass and hired French DJ Fred Caiou, and the line-up is currently completed by drummer Ricko Walsh. They claim to be genre busters, but in reality are genre mixers, and usually in ways that are more accessible than shocking.

When primitive house suddenly drops into the stoner rock of 'Cops And Robbers' it fits surprisingly well; the occasional campness and flamboyance of Bez's voice - somewhere in between David Bowie and Brandon Boyd - is more likely to take you back. Throbbing electro crops up again on 'NME', which has a dig at bands that change their sound and image to get in the 'New Musical Express' while sounding like something the 'NME' would have liked six years ago (Plus grungy guitars they would have liked eleven years before that). Is that post-modern? Probably not.

Dorp sound like the kind of band that would be popular among the type of people that go festivals and have bad dreadlocks, describe their music collection as "a bit of everything, really" (Expect scary things like gangster rap, screamy metal and mainstream pop) and probably get stoned a fair bit. They'd probably really like 'Extreme', the less sexy brother of 'Supermassive Black Hole'; it's grimy, funky and a little bit Rage-y. They'd like 'London Out There' and 'Simon Says' too, because they sound like Sound Garden playing techno, but not 'Rollercoaster' because that sounds like a nu-metal boyband. They're not as alternative as they like to think they are, a bit like Dorp.

Listen: www.myspace.com/dorp

Tracklist:
1. Cops And Robbers
2. Pigs Do Fly
3. Extreme
4. NME
5. Plug Into The Machine
6. Rollercoaster
7. London Out There
8. Boy/Girl
9. Stand Out
10. Simon Says
11. A List
12. Wait
13. I Got What You Need

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