Neon Trees – Habits

In a nutshell this album is synth and guitar driven pop rock, which combines themes of reckless behaviour and fraught relationships with a purely young adolescent focus. The opening track Sins Of My Youth summarises this, presumably aimed at a future partner toying with the idea that if they were aware of past skeletons in the closet and youth driven drama and toil, would it change their present desire?

Baring this in mind track four entitled and reminiscent of 1983 did raise a giggle, and at risk of sounding like your nan, it would seem to be a year in which this four piece don’t appear old enough to have been born in let alone have gone out raving! However they clearly knew how to live demonstrated in lines such as “put our your cigarette and kiss me on the lips,” as of course we didn’t know smoking caused cancer back then – a microcosm of rebellion! On the contrary it must be said the first track released off this album, Animal received a lot of airplay.

This includes the infamous line “here we go again I wanna be more than friends.” Although the lyrics may seem a little trite you will definitely find yourself belting them out in the shower. As far as a punk pop band with an American audience with an average age of 14 goes they are heading for the stars! It must be credited to them that even though they have pop smeared crudely all over this album, and despite their gothic space age appearance they are not trying to mask their visage behind an indie appeal, as many American bands do to attract an English audience. In fairness they do write all of their own material and play real instruments. It’s almost a little unfortunate that these nine tracks are just a little too serious for cheese appeal and not quite original enough for the multi selling market.

This is an album, and possibly a band that sit on that awkward threshold, maybe have the fantastic second album or fade into the veil of musicians known for two tracks and small venue tours.

www.myspace.com/neontrees