By Thomas Bond
The Dandy Warhols ...Earth to The Dandy Warhols... (Beat the World)
The sixth studio album from The Dandy Warhols returns them to the indie fold from whence they sprang in the mid-'90s, as it's being released on their own Beat the World label today.
It's much less of a surprise that the resolutely idiosyncratic band was dropped by Capitol than it is that the group lasted more than a decade on the major label, making music that was by turns maddeningly catchy and maddeningly inscrutable.
That pattern continues apace on “Earth,” with straight-up pop songs giving way to fuzzed-out psychedelia and twangy, pseudo-Americana butting up against droney, space jams including the interminable closer “Musee d'Nougat” which clocks in at almost 15 minutes.
In other words, the Dandys have made an album much like all their others (excepting the focused new-wavery of “Welcome to the Monkey House”). The one new genre they try on for size here is the rock-meets-disco swing of “Welcome to the Third World,” which sounds like the Stones' “Miss You” updated for the new millennium as singer-songwriter Courtney Taylor-Taylor camps it up Jagger-like to hilarious effect.
This is one band that's proud to be lost in their own space and the new album will be a welcome transmission to all those tuned to their frequency.
