Fight Like Apes
The Body of Christ and the Legs of Tina Turner
Release Date: May 2, 2011
Genre(s): Pop/Rock, Alternative/Indie Rock, Alternative Pop/Rock, Indie Rock, New Wave/Post-Punk Revival
Record label: Model Citizen
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Album Review: The Body of Christ and the Legs of Tina Turner by Fight Like Apes
Very Good, Based on 4 Critics
Based on rating 7/10
Frankly, Body of Christ and the Legs of Tina Turner is well summed up by its title: triumphantly kitschy, simple enough that any 13-year-old dreaming up a name for his or her imaginary band's record could come up with it, but also bound to bring out that smirk. Sometimes it plays like a new wave/pop-punk hybrid all shrouded in layers of guitar buzz, and elsewhere, it's closer to electro-clash, almost like Peaches, but with much better arrangements and its eye on good pop, not cheap shock value. Most of the time, it's both at once, though it's not as immediately gripping as it should be.
Based on rating 7/10
Fight Like Apes are very good at coming up with titles. If The Body of Christ and the Legs of Tina Turner doesn't strike you as a particularly good name for an album (although it obviously is), try some of their song titles on for size: 'Pull Your Arms Off - Let's Play in Your Blood;' 'Waking Up With Robocop;' 'Ice Cream Apple Fuck;' 'Kathmandu (Face it, You're Caviar, I'm Hot Dogs)'. Can the songs possibly live up to their names? In the five years since they formed, the band has developed a reputation as great live performers, toured with acts as diverse as The Ting Tings, Kasabian and The Prodigy, released one previous album (2008's Fight Like Apes and the Mystery of the Golden Medallion) and a few EPs, and been named the fourth best Irish musical act of their generation by The Irish Times.
Based on rating 3/5
[b]‘Cult concern’[/b] probably isn’t an insult to Dublin gang FLApes, who’ve been lacing their bright, bracing strop-songs with references to Star Wars, The A-Team, Robocop and other such 20-something cultural comforters for five years now. Massively inappropriate, they specialise in laugh-out-loud moments nestled up against vicious angst. It’d take a stony soul to stifle a snort at the straight-faced smuggling of lines like “my well-read friends inform me that I was a cunt” on the furious [b]‘Pull Off Your Arms And Let’s Play In Your Blood’[/b].
Opinion: Excellent
Twelve gloriously penned pieces of unadulterated pop. Jen Long 2011 Mary-Kate Geraghty (or ‘MayKay’) is an intriguing character. In terms of her vocal range, its subtle but destroying timbre, and her first-crush looks, it’s easy to imagine her as a chart-topping pop diva, stealing the hearts and minds of a million teenage fans. Instead, we find her fronting Irish keyboard-trashing outfit Fight Like Apes, wrestling her bandmates to the floor and throwing out more curses than Kanye.
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