Electric President have a lovely sound going for them, a sort of gentle, lapping warmth and quiet-voice sound, but that does not mean that I like them. Listening to all ten tracks of bubbling music on their self-titled debut is less like listening to a good band and more like listening to the earnest guys in your electronic music class, the ones who only hang out together and make music that seems way more professional than anything that you could come up with, but that somehow still fails to impress.
Still, they do put their best foot forward with the first song, "Good Morning Hypocrite," which is exactly the kind of slow bouncing number that could easily makes its way onto a mixtape for that girl you have a crush on who sits in front of you in class. After that, everything sort of runs on its inoffensive way: "Insomnia" sounds tailor-made for a big scene in an independent movie, and "Metal Fingers" is a little like a Unicorns song without the unexpected humor or endearing awkwardness.
If this is damning with faint praise, so be it, but actually, when taken out of the context of the album, the songs do have a certain compelling force. The textures are often lovely, and the unexpected sounds, like the strange voice/percussion on "We Were Never Built To Last," seem to come out of different, better songs, which only makes it more of a shame when you think about their more obvious debts. "Some Crap About the Future" might as well be a less interesting version of Eno's "The Bigship," until it turns into regular rock and roll, and there are definitely hints of The Flaming Lips in the more upbeat orchestral flourishes of "Ten Thousand Lines."
This is the first "bad" review that I have really written for this website, and at least from my perspective, it's worth thinking about why, despite the fact that everything seems so much in place, Electric President doesn't really work on the listener like it should. I think that at least some of it has to do with the incredible polish that can be placed so easily on electronic music, like hard lacquer on a bad table. Everything about the album seems so careful, from the presentation to the songs themselves. I just got disappointed so fast, you know?
1. Good Morning Hypocrite
2. Insomnia
3. Ten Thousand Lines
4. Grand Machine No. 12
5. Hum
6. Snow on Dead Neighborhoods
7. Some Crap About the Future
8. Metal Fingers
9. We Were Never Built to Last
10. Farewell