BLEEDING KNEES CLUB – NOTHING TO DO
Released 5th March 2012 (ColumbiaUK)

Words: Emma Lawrence

I’ve heard a lot about Bleeding Knees Club lately so when I was offered this album to review I jumped at the chance to see if they live up to all the hype. This Dev Hynes produced album is filled with grunge pop that would be played down your local death disco. For those of you not in the know Dev Hynes used to be in punk/grunge/indie, (the list of genres could go on!), band Test Icicles and has done solo stuff as folk/indie Lightspeed Champion. So when I heard he was producing this I realised it could go either way! However this review is not about Dev Hynes, but is in actual fact about Bleeding Knees Club, who have made a pretty sweet danceable album!

Single “Teenage Girls” is upbeat, happy and ditty, which is funnily enough about teenage girls! It has the right amount of “rock” and the right amount of “pop” in it. This song is a great choice for an opener and sets the album up in good stead. It gives off summer vibes, which for those of us not from Australia, duo Alex and Jordan hail from the sunny Gold Coast in Oz, sunshine is not something we are used to seeing!

A stand out track for me was “Hate Me” which sounds quite similar to “Problem Child” and has a catchy riff. It was a song which I found myself dancing around my room to, even if my dance moves were slightly questionable!

On the other hand the one song that I wasn’t too keen on was “Beach Slut”. The vocals on it are slightly whinny and grating even though the song does build up into a crescendo. It doesn’t seem to quite fit into the albums upbeat distorted sound that is carried out so well by the rest of the album.

Most of the songs on the album sound similar to one another, but this seems to work for the band and hey! If it’s not broken, don’t fix it! Overall this album is a good first effort and one that if you get the chance to, you really should listen to! It’s worth it, and you should probably believe the hype! Bleeding Knees Club have big things ahead of them. Let’s all hope they don’t disappear as quickly as Test Icicles did!