Well proof once more that the Pineapple Chunks can be as brilliant and as baffling as any band in Scotland – not infrequently within the same song.

Their music can be loosely termed indie rock, I suppose, in the sense that for the most part it’s pop music made with electric guitars.  If you look at the tags the band themselves have added to free download single She Needs Answers then you’ll see they refer to themselves as arty-farty, lameoid, out of time and out of tune.

That isn’t exactly an accurate description, in the sense that they’re actually a very good band, but it most certainly does describe the aesthetic at play here.  (Magicland) Dizzy starts a bit like the theme from Top Gear, the aforementioned She Needs Answers has a ‘guitar’ solo which seems to consist of the band themselves singing ‘nyow-nyow-nyow-nyow-nyowwwww’, and they have a song called Art Storage about a mouse running around under the bed shitting all over someone’s unsold paintings. Throughout the song Owen Williams, the band’s drummer, keeps up an increasingly hysterical bawling about the fate of his beloved work which adds an even more ludicrous touch to the song than the subject matter already lends it.

There doesn’t seem to be any arch-hipster posing about the magnificently unfashionable approach on this album.  As far as I can tell the band are entirely sincere, they’re just fucking nuts.  And to be absolutely fair, I think that on occasions the more idiosyncratic elements don’t quite gel, leaving the odd song mired in the less fashionable elements of nostalgia and feeling a little like having to tell your dad to please not tuck his tracksuit top into his tracksuit trousers.

When it’s good, though, which is often, you have a brilliantly playful album of the wonkiest indie rock I’ve heard in a while, with more character and more individuality than ninety percent of the bands in music at the moment.  And in amongst all the abrupt changes of direction and moments of real oddness, there are some absolutely nailed-on pop classics on this record.  It’s as wild, inconsistent and all over the place as the band themselves, but as long as you can embrace that then I reckon you’re going to love it.

The Pineapple Chunks – She Needs Answers

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The Pineapple Chunks – Art Storage

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