Save for a couple pleasing exceptions – "Joker and Clown" and "By the Time I Get Home." – most of this Grand National sounds like Turin Brakes. Either that, or present-day ponderous Electric Soft Parade. Unappealing touchstones. Perhaps most troublesome of all, there are gruesome conga breakdowns that recall Guster. Nice legs on the cover art, though.
The album simultaneously calls forth memories of Sting, modern indie rock, and downbeat Euro-electro, taking the listener on an alternating journey through comforting, yet simultaneously discomfiting territory.
The band seemed to have a decent stage presence and the tracks on their debut album are played in a punchy Franz Ferdinand style that should translate live, but I guess we will have to wait for another show to find out for sure.
