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Concert Thu Feb 23 2012
Bombay Bicycle Club w/ The Darcys at Subterranean, Monday 2/27
If the number of sell out club dates on their current American tour is any indicator, North London's Bombay Bicycle Club are finding their legs on this side of the pond. Last year's release of their third album, A Different Kind of Fix, which benefited from the production touch of Ben H. Allen, who has recently worked with notables like Animal Collective and Washed Out, showed the band moving in a different direction from its previous, mostly acoustic release, Flaws. Bombay Bicycle Club's music isn't particularly groundbreaking, it certainly bears the hallmarks of a fairly standard strain of British guitar-based indie, but the new album successfully showcases the band's strengths in frontman Jack Steadman's appealing vocals, and well-crafted, catchy tunes.
Of equal interest is opening act The Darcys, a Toronto-based act on indie uber-label Arts & Crafts. Of recent note, the band had the audacity to cover, in its entirety, Steely Dan's 1977 masterwork Aja. Steely Dan, of course, is legendary for their studio neuroses, and fortunately, The Darcys did not attempt to slavishly recreate Aja's emotionally cool, measured perfection. Rather, the band deconstructed the album and built from the ground up, working with the fundamentals and ending up with a sort of contemporary yacht-rock (think fellow Canadians Destroyer) inspired take. Is it as good as the original? Nah, but the album manages more hits than misses, and certainly merits points for ambition.
Bombay Bicycle Club appears with The Darcys and Lucy Rose at Subterranean, 2011 W. North Ave. on Monday, February 27. This show is sold out.
