Album Review: City Club by The Growlers

As is the case with the majority of human beings, Julian Casablancas has fingers, and on these fingers he has finger tips (more than likely, I haven’t checked). In his 38 years on this planet his sticky mitts will have touched millions, perhaps billions, of objects. While you’d have to be some sort of super forensic scientist to identify his prints on the majority of things, there are one or two places where even the naffest scientist would be able to recognise the presence of good old Julian.

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The follow-up to 2014's demented Chinese Fountain, the propulsive City Club does away with the genre-hopping, "beach goth" aesthetic of prior outings, and installs a new, more streamlined foundation that favors punchy synths and a newly funked-up rhythm section. While the Growlers have always been a shifty bunch, it's hard not to attribute a great deal of this sea change to producer Julian Casablancas, who applies a significant amount of Strokes-ian swagger to the 11-track set. That cocksure, backbeat, and overdriven vocals-heavy style serves tracks like "City Club," "I'll Be Around," "Rubber & Bone," and "Speed Living" well, applying some much appreciated tightening to the band's spirited but ramshackle brand of nervy west coast psych-pop.

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