First of all, White Car is on.”Genevieve” is a particularly gripping ditty as a demonstration of compromise. The tracking is balanced and the orchestration impressively precise. On one hand, there’s no genre innovation here. Taken separately each of the track’s ingredients is pedestrian. Dark, lascivious vocals aren’t new, nor are the drum kicks that sound like brain splatters from a violent video game. Such sounds have lost the surprise they might have held way back last decade. Plus, they’re the kind of sounds that can quickly morph from intriguing to inundating… but then, on the other hand, pay close attention to “Genevieve“‘s digital steel drum and tubular bells. They are impeccably placed and maturely restrained. The first time they appear it’s a revelation. The next time is sweet confirmation. The entire song comes into focus.
“Genevieve” is a risky song. Through its entire duration, it toes the line between being a track you’ve heard before and one that you never want to hear again. But amazingly, in the middle ground it holds, it’s a song you can listen to over and over while finding nothing else exactly like it.
Hippos in Tanks will release Everyday Grace, White Car’s debut LP, on February 28.
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• White Car: http://soundcloud.com/whitecar
• Hippos in Tanks: http://hipposintanks.net/