width="71" height="71">What Is Not To Love
Slash, 1998
rating: 4/5
reviewer: charles ubaghs
Memory is a surprisingly fickle thing. In the mid 1990's, while in my mid-teens, I first heard Imperial Teen's debut album Sea Sick. A brilliant collection of jubilant boy girl harmonies, layered over pop littered guitar licks with a new wave bent that still sticks to my mind to this day. Which is why I could never understand why Imperial Teen failed to gain the mass acceptance they, in my mind, so glaringly deserve.
In 1998 they released their sophomore album, What Is Not To Love. Again, it was a collection of flawlessly executed boy girl harmonies, layered over pop littered guitar licks with a new wave bent. Plus this time they were darker songs, with an added dose of pain tinged attitude that forged ahead from the slightly more traditional melodic styles prominent on Sea Sick. And in 1998, upon hearing What Is Not To Love, I believed it was a far superior album to their debut...and I did until I broke the album out of its dust jacket on my shelf for reviewing purposes.
What Is Not To Love is a tight collection of pop songs that avoid the pit falls of saccharine laden guitar power-pop (Yeah, that's right, I'm talking to you Fountains of Wayne). It repeatedly establishes vocal, instrumental and thematic tension from nothing more then the sheer structure of the songs and performances. Edging more towards oddly ramshackle yet concise songs that ebb and flow in a more organic fashion then the uber crisp pop of their debut. No where is this more evident then on "Hooray", which begins with a repetitive guitar riff followed by a sparse rhythm section and the line, “Looking all over for quarters...” Eventually building, after seven minutes into a raging torrent of sound wrapped into a glorious package by vocals screaming, “Wait for you/looking black...” It's tight, it's precise, it's messy, it's guitar based pop music at its very best; forward thinking and effortlessly toe tapping all at once. And so yes, What is Not To Love is an under appreciated power-pop album, that is very very quickly fading into an obscurity it should never be placed in. But, and I would not have said this until I brought this album off the shelf for reviewing purposes, tracks such as "Birthday Girl" are not as wholly perfect as I once thought they were. The album is as good as Sea Sick, for different reasons, and should be very much appreciated for its moments of sheer transcendent pop perfection, but it's not uniformly brilliant. Yet when Imperial Teen do hit their pop stride, and it's more often then not, there are only a handful of others that have done the same; and for that, they should be far more acknowledged than they are.
1. Open Season
2. Birthday Girl
3. Yoo Hoo
4. Lipstick
5. Alone in the Grass
6. Crucible
7. The Beginning
8. Year of the Tan
9. Seven
10. Hooray
11. Beauty