Normally, when someone gets an advance copy of an album with the intent to review it, they write and post that review before the album comes out. That's not what we do here, though! Despite getting the new Tennis Pro album Shimokita is Dead? a few weeks ago, I'm just now posting this review - days after the album dropped.
This album, based heavily on the time the band recently spent in Japan, is 15 tracks long and much more musically diverse than their previous offerings. Not all the tracks are considered by the band to be full songs, but they're all worth a listen. Here are a few of the album's highlights:
Track 1: "Dance Hit Number One" - A good, very eighties-influenced song residing far outside the band's power pop wheelhouse. Though its style isn't repeated on the album, its strangeness serves as a good introduction to the rest of the tracks' divergent styles.
Track 2: "Satomi Bicycle" - Immediately, the album shifts back to power pop. The narrative style that characterizes some of their best songs is evident here. One of the album's top three new songs.
Track 6: "Rock Over Tokyo" - See the review of Happy Is The New Sad, but like some of the other repeated tracks, this one is a new and slightly different version.
Track 10: "Clothing Optional Christian Barbecue" - Based on a melody written for a beer commercial and the creepy vibe of a middle-aged nudist, there is no way this song wasn't going to be fantastic. Its origin gives it a slightly different vibe, instrumentation-wise, from a lot of the other stuff on the album, but paired with the vocals it's the perfect weirdo party song.
Many of the other tracks would merit a description as well, but let me simply summarize by saying that the album's experiment with guitar-driven post-grunge make for an interesting - if not always completely effective - contrast. I fully recommend the album, but if the price tag seems a little much I would at least recommend downloading these four songs.
