Arctic Reviews

Notice - Review Contains Language Some May Find Offensive

Music critics: not to be trusted under any circumstances. Never satisfied. Petty. Vain. Fickle. Sure, we're all these things, but probably the most repugnant thing about us is that we have a herd instinct that would make 300 cows feel spiritually disconnected. Despite our petty jealousies, we dig what each other has to say. Like some journalistic Borg, we revel in the homogeneity of our collective view. We positively reinforce each other like crutches in an amputee ward. Radiohead? Fuckin' brilliant mate. Arctic Monkeys? Never put a chord wrong fella. And yet...Snow Patrol? shit, worthless, celtic, knicker sniffing sons a of donkey whore. Wankers. Worse than wankers. Bloody AOR wankers.

They who strike first more often than not set the agenda, making or breaking artists as the rest file into an orderly queue eager to confer exactly the same opinion using marginally different adverbs. It's criticism by consensus, different only by brand, masthead or URL. Unequivocally, we are all the snivelling bastard runt-children of Lester Bangs "HOW TO WRITE YOUR VERY FIRST ORIGINAL RECORD REVIEW".

The arrival of a Classic Fantastic is an opportunity to witness this phenomenon in almost laboratory conditions. As an enterprise, the Fun Lovin Criminals are almost a decade away from their commercial peak now, long ago dropped by EMI and returning from an almost five year hiatus after their last release Livin' In The City. To the hacks, their crimes are many, not least of which was being suckered by their clearly ridiculous original construct as supposed New York gangsterz on some kind of musical therapy-based parole. To the NME - rating 1/10 - the mere continued existence of either the band or this record seemed to constitute an insult to the magazine's very being, one which the only slightly more enthusiastic Q - 2/5 - were also tacitly ready to acknowledge.

But then again, what the fuck do they know. Look, it's a Fun Lovin' Criminals record. There's going to be hip-hop, rock, soul, disco. Sometimes all in the same song. Lead singer Huey Morgan - possibly the best example of why rap began in The Bronx and not in Brooklyn - will pile up some excruciatingly bad rhymes here or there (Example: Keep on Yellin's "Dont ask why/I'll knock you in the eye/if you and try and act sly"). The phrases "Noo Yawk" and "FLC" will be repeated ad nauseam. There is, unashamedly, nothing creative here that hasn't been on one of this record's five predecessors. You could play any song here in abstract and figure out who the band who'd made it every time. If anything in fact, it's slightly less cosmopolitan than the band's usual chaotic melting pot of disparate root sounds and influences.

Which isn't to say that there isn't plenty to like. Opener Mars is a fabulously brainless party groove, complete with the Schwarzenegger refrain "Get your ass to Mars" and a pastiche of Stephen Hawking's robo-voice which borders on being taste free. Slightly closer to expectations, the title track is as close to romantic as Morgan gets - ass grabbin' in the vernacular - with a guitar riff lifted directly from Sly & The Family Stone's Everyday People and a big band hook that comes from the Hudson via Caesars Palace. And if there is only one dimension, at least it's one that doesn't take itself too seriously; Mister Sun commits the cardinal sin of using children on backing vocals, but still manages to ooze a lazy funk groove that brings to mind South Beach Miami, good times and bad hangovers.

Further analysis? Well, Classic Fantastic is better than Livin' In The City, probably because it lacks it's predecessor's awkward post-Iraq anger and uncharachteristically downbeat feel. It's certainly not though in the bracket of Come Find Yourself, or as retro-louche as 100% Colombian, but that time has passed. Morgan and co. may slowly be going to the place where old bands go to die, but there'll be a cold six pack and a joint ready when they get there.